Hervey 07 - An Act Of Courage (37 page)

‘Fie! Major Hervey! I had thought your study of Scripture would yield some more profound insight.’

Hervey smiled again. Was Sanchez merely making conversation? It was a curious attempt at diversion. ‘If you wish, señor, I will tell you what I understand may have happened at Jericho.’

‘Indeed I would hear it. It seems apt, here in Badajoz, don’t you think?’

Hervey was even more intrigued. Did Sanchez mean the aptness was historical or of the moment? ‘Apt? Possibly. Unlike the French, however – or, I imagine, your countrymen now – the Canaanites were terrified at the prospect of meeting the Israelites. They were resigned to their fate even. Does not Rahab the harlot say, “Our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more courage in any man”?’

‘Go on, Major Hervey.’

Hervey hesitated. The subject was closing to home. ‘The first object in laying a siege is to persuade the besieged that resistance is futile. The walls of Jericho would have meant little if the defenders had not had the courage to fight.’

Sanchez nodded, but with the appearance of sadness. ‘Would that the hearts of the defenders of Badajoz had melted!’

Hervey presumed he meant the night they had stormed the city. But he supposed it just possible that Sanchez referred in a roundabout way to the Miguelites. He would lead a little more. ‘Yes, would that they had. But Jericho was sacked, as you recall, and all but Rahab’s family put to the sword. It was an offering to God, was it not – a first fruit of the conquest of Canaan?’

‘Badajoz was an offering too – an offering to the basest instincts of war. Was not Badajoz the first fruit of the conquest of Spain?’

Hervey’s brow furrowed. ‘Hardly
conquest
, doctor!’

‘Forgive me. The campaign that rid Spain of Bonaparte –
both
of them – and for which my country is ever grateful for the assistance of yours, I assure you. But Badajoz paid the same price as Jericho.’

Hervey shook his head. ‘I recoil at the image of Jericho put to the sword, doctor, as I do at that of Badajoz. And yet the slaughter of the innocent here that night is somehow all of a piece with the slaughter in the breaches. You can have no idea how hard our men had to fight to overcome the walls. They did not tumble down, as at Jericho.’

Sanchez nodded again, gravely. ‘I know, perhaps, better than you imagine, my friend.’

Hervey stayed silent; he saw no cause for pressing him.

And then the physician brightened. ‘But you, I think – I
know
– did not use the edge of the sword against the people of Badajoz.’

‘Certainly not.’

‘Quite the contrary, indeed.’

Hervey looked at him intently.

‘See, my friend: I did not visit this morning, but it was not from neglect. I have the means of your escape. It will be quite easy, but we shall need help from Elvas.’

Hervey fought against his exhilaration. He needed to know how Sanchez had the means, and why. The declaration was so much more surprising for his having concluded that the physician was not his man. ‘Why do you do this?’

Sanchez held up a hand. ‘There may be opportunity to explain later. For the moment I would beg you to trust me, and attend carefully to what I say.’

Hervey inclined his head; what was there to lose?

‘Very well. Now understand this,’ began Sanchez, unusually imperative. ‘The castle is impregnable – in the minds, at least, of the authorities. The guards are few and confident of surety. Men may come and go quite freely as long as they have the password, which changes but weekly. The next change will be in two days’ time, when I shall learn of it. But, of course, I may not simply walk out of the castle with you. In any case, how then might you get to Elvas?’

Hervey was certain he would have no trouble getting to Elvas. ‘A third party must enter and overcome the guards on the way out?’

‘That is a possibility, although not without its difficulties. I had in mind your taking my place and leaving with a visiting party.’

Hervey looked doubtful. ‘I rather think it the stuff of books.’

Sanchez shook his head. ‘I see no reason why it should not obtain here, Major Hervey. I have observed the guards. They are, as I say, confident –
complacent
– in their surety. There is, after all, no threat to the fortress, and the officers do not intrude upon their duties greatly. No, I have seen the guards at work: they are content to count the numbers entering and leaving the citadel. Sometimes they do not even count.’

‘Forgive me, doctor. I did not wish to sound unthankful. As long as we have the means to fight our way past the guards if things go wrong . . . But how may we leave you here? Your fate would be an unhappy one!’

Sanchez held up his hands. ‘That is a detail of which we may speak in due course. The first thing we must do is communicate the password to Elvas. I am unable to do so, for reasons you may suppose. But you have free communications by letter, as we see. You have, I presume, a code?’

Hervey shook his head. ‘Matters did not progress to that.’

Sanchez looked disappointed. ‘Ah, I had imagined—’

‘Except . . .’ began Hervey, thoughtful. ‘There
is
a code . . . but I don’t have it. But if I ask Elvas to send me the code-book of the Corpo Telegráfico . . . do you imagine the authorities will let it pass?’

‘Ask for
many
books. That way there stands a chance it might not be noticed.’

Hervey took up a pen. There was paper still on the table from his half-hearted attempts to maintain his journal. He began writing, quickly, an everyday account of his time these past few days, nothing to raise a suspicion. Then he inserted the request for the code-book, trusting that the veiling did not obscure his meaning, other than to the censor:

But time weighs heavily upon me. Send me books to read, as many as you may spare, for I am without any diversion. Send, if you can, Folque’s book, that I may learn more of the language while I am confined. And we may speak to each other of his ideas
.

Hervey read him the letter, in French.

‘Admirable, admirable. It will arouse no suspicion whatsoever. And your general will understand?’

‘He will understand, I trust. We spoke of Folque enough.’

‘Who is he?’

‘A general of engineers. He planned the army’s signalling system, and its code. Wellington used it throughout the Peninsula.’

‘Very well. I will take your letter to the lieutenant-governor at once. If he has not heard of Folque either, Elvas should have it by the morning.’ Sanchez rose.

Hervey fixed him with a scrutinizing look, though far from hostile. ‘Why do you do this?’

The physician replaced his battered old tricorn, and put a hand to Hervey’s shoulder. ‘Badajoz, my friend. Because of Badajoz!’

It was no explanation at all: Hervey was uncomprehending still. Why would this man do this, risk his own life, indeed, when a British army had behaved so infamously in his own city? He shook his head.

‘That night, the night of the storming here: the shadows are yet long.’

‘But—’

‘Another day, Hervey; another day, perhaps.’ Then he lifted up the letter, waving it and smiling, hopefully.

CHAPTER TWENTY

FIRST FRUITS

Badajoz, midnight, 6 April 1812

Five years, Sir Edward Lankester had said it would take to eject the French from Spain. ‘The long point’, he had called it – ‘no bolting Reynard and running him fast to the kill’. Three of those years had passed, and here they were at Badajoz, barely a league beyond the border with Portugal, exactly where they had been three summers ago. ‘Believe me, Hervey, these French marshals will show us more foxery than you’d see in a dozen seasons in Leicestershire.’ On such a night as this, Sir Edward’s words seemed extraordinarily prophetic.

No, they were not
exactly
where they had been three summers ago. This time they were
before
the walls rather than within. Hervey could not help but smile at the realization, chilling though it was. In truth, however, it was not quite as it seemed, and he knew it – they all knew it. Sir Arthur Wellesley was a hunting man; he was now thoroughly acquainted with his hounds and his huntsmen, and he had the measure of his quarry at last. After Talavera, elevated in the opinion of his army (and by the King to Viscount Wellington), he had secretly constructed the lines of Torres Vedras in case he would have to defend Lisbon. Then for twelve months he had dashed about La Mancha as the Spanish junta collapsed, so that the following October, when he perceived he could rely on Spanish support no longer, he withdrew to the lines, breaking his pursuer, Marshal Masséna, by scorching the earth for fifty miles so that for a whole month Masséna’s men sickened and starved within sight of the lines before turning-tail back for Spain.

And so the third year, 1811, had begun with high hopes. They had soon been dashed as the French captured Badajoz and the other border fortresses, closing the door into Spain again. Wellington had lost no time, however, investing Badajoz within two months. But the siege had failed, and a second a month later. Winter quarters, still at the border, still no nearer Joseph Bonaparte’s capital, had been cold and bitter indeed. Wellington knew he could not stay long. And so at the beginning of January 1812, although the ground was hard as iron, and sleeting snow did his army more ill than could the French, he had opened the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo. The fortress fell to a fierce assault ten days later, and Wellington – the whole army – had then turned with confident but brutal determination to the
third
siege of Badajoz.

‘Who the
devil
are you, sir?’ barked a voice from the smoky blackness. ‘Get out of my way!’

Sir Edward Lankester had had enough. General Cotton had ordered his squadron forward, dismounted, to the support of the Third Division, but they had stumbled about for an hour in the pitch dark, the guide useless. The walls of Badajoz looked but a stone’s throw away, and the noise was infernal – the sudden shots, the numbing explosions, the terrified screams of the wounded, the terrifying screams of the assault troops, the jeering-cheering of the French who threw them back. And yet the detachment of dragoons could find no part in it because they could not find the provost marshal’s men. ‘Do
not
address me in that way, sir! I have not been informed that it is a ticket affair!’

‘Damn your eyes, sir! I am General Picton!’

Sir Edward was not in the slightest discomposed. ‘Then I am very glad of it, General, for we are damnably lost and have no idea of our purpose. Perhaps you will permit us to join you?’

‘Is that
you
, Sir Edward?’

‘It is, General.’

‘Where are your horses?’

‘The other side of the river. Do you have need of them?’

‘Don’t be a damned fool! What are you doing here?’

‘We are wanted by the provost marshal, it seems.’

‘Well, God alone knows where he is. Or cares. These walls are the death of us. Colville’s division and the Light can make no headway in the breaches. And God knows how Leith’s fares on the other side. You can come with me. I need officers to take charge. How many have you?’

‘Three.’ He would not ask ‘to take charge of what?’

‘Well, keep your dragoons where they are and keep as close to me as you’re able.’

That soon proved harder than it sounded. General Picton wore a black coat and a forage cap, and there were more men crowded into the ditch at the foot of the castle walls than Hervey would have imagined possible. A powder keg fell on a man a dozen yards away, killing him instantly. His comrades stamped at the burning fuse like frantic Spanish dancers. A grenade exploded beyond, and there were another ten men screaming.

This was not Hervey’s idea of fighting; it was nobody’s idea of fighting. What was it about Badajoz? Three sieges in twelve months, days of battering away at the walls, and still not a man through its breaches! And here were the Third Division now trying to scale the walls, for the breaches were mined, barred with
chevaux de frise
, and swept by cannon – swept all the easier for not having to fire through embrasures. It was madness, yet still they were trying. The ladders did not even reach the top of the walls! Hervey saw a man climbing onto the shoulders of another, and then another onto his, as if his life depended on it. What could propel a man so, only to be met with a musket-butt in the face and a thirty-foot plunge onto the bayonets of his comrades below?

But life did not depend on it. On the contrary – the piles of dead below the walls showed that. Hervey knew that something else drove them forward. Threats? Perhaps. Pride? Possibly. Promise of reward? Maybe. A dreadful blood-lust, concocted of revenge and filthy living in the trenches? Undoubtedly. It was a volatile mixture, one that could be boiled up only occasionally and under the severest regulation. Hervey’s blood did not yet boil, neither did pride nor promise of reward overwhelm him yet. No one threatened him, for sure. What in the name of God was he going to do here?