Whose Business Is to Die (19 page)

‘The peer prefers his officers to look respectable,’ he said. ‘Their adherence to uniform is a small matter, but he values men like you for their judgement rather than any capacity for slaughter.’

The merchant had stayed in Elvas, so Hanley rode instead with Colonel D’Urban. Just a few days ago he had helped the
quartermaster general read a captured dispatch written in cipher. It had taken them a while, working through the page of numbers and symbols written altogether without gaps. The code proved simple, so they had searched for patterns – the frequently repeated 6= they guessed to be ‘et’. That gave them two letters as a start, and as they put these into the sequence they started to guess at other words. In all it took them ten hours, closeted in a room with another staff officer, but by the end they had the whole text, which proved disappointingly bland.

‘That they bothered shows that they are becoming wary,’ Baynes concluded when they explained the system to him. ‘And I doubt discovering the code will prove so simple a task next time.’

D’Urban was good company, and for the moment had little to do, something that would change as soon as Lord Wellington completed his reconnaissance and issued orders for the siege.

‘There,’ he said, pointing. ‘Look at the lighter-coloured stone. That is where the French made their breach. I doubt that the work is good or yet settled, but you must admire them for repairing it so quickly.’

Hanley looked at the stretch of wall next to one of the great bastions, but this sign of recent fragility offered little encouragement. Badajoz depressed him more each time he looked at the brooding fortress. He hoped the general and the engineers and gunners saw something that he did not.

‘Will that same spot be the focus of our assault?’ he asked. ‘If the mortar on the repairs is weak then it ought to be easier to knock down. And from what I saw at Ciudad Rodrigo the French engineers are good judges of the weakness of a place.’

‘Aye, they are, but then they have the luxury of far greater resources and plenty of time. The ground on this south side is open, as you see, which means that we would have to start our trenches a long way back, and then dig forward. At the very least that would take several weeks, for I dare say the French would not make it easy for us.’

They moved on again, Lord Wellington leading them at a gallop towards the Picurina fort. It was one of two outworks on
the southern side, both smaller than the San Cristoval, but still formidable.

There was a puff of smoke from the rampart, a moment later the boom of a gun and almost immediately a shot kicked up a spray of dirt some fifty yards ahead of the general. Lord Wellington turned off to the right and rode up to a gentle rise about half a mile from the outwork.

‘It appears that we are not welcome,’ D’Urban said as they followed.

The gun did not fire again, which suggested that they were too far away for good practice.

‘Time is not on our side, Hanley. Badajoz has a strong garrison and enough food to keep them going for months. We may have hurt Marshal Soult’s pride by driving him back, but merely surrounding the place will not do much more than that. We have to take it, and take it quickly, because the very moment we cut the first trench you can be sure the news will be carried south. Once that happens Soult will undoubtedly not let us alone. So how much time will that give us?’

Hanley thought before answering. ‘Three or four days for the news to reach Seville, then a week to gather an army together from the garrisons. Less than a week to march here.’

D’Urban was pleased. ‘Our thoughts are similar, and you will be pleased to hear that Lord Wellington has reached much the same conclusion. He judges that we will have at most sixteen days to take the place. By that time at the latest we will have to draw off all our troops from the siege to face Soult. We do not have enough men to prosecute the attack here and be sufficiently strong to meet the French army should they wish to force a battle.

‘So sixteen days is likely all we have, and perhaps not even that. Unless a clever fellow like you can devise some scheme to get us in without a formal siege … No. I do hear that marching round and round and blowing trumpets has worked in the past, so that may be a line worth pursuing!’

Hanley stared at the main wall and the two bastions protecting
the nearest corner – the Santa Maria and the San Trinidad. Earlier on one of the engineers had voiced the opinion that the quality of work on the whole fortress was poor, but crude or not it would not be easy to take. The castle – it was a Moorish citadel if he remembered correctly from visiting the town some years ago – had high old-fashioned walls not designed to protect against cannon. It might have formed a weak spot were it not so hard to approach, with only a narrow spit of land before a river, dammed and flooded to make a wide lagoon, fed into the broad Guadiana. Hanley could see no quick way in.

Time was precious, but from all he had seen Marshal Beresford had not so far acted as if this was the case. That was not an opinion he dared express in his present company, for although D’Urban was a smart fellow, he was also fiercely loyal to his chief and Hanley worried that this clouded his judgement.

‘Brute of a place, though, is it not?’ D’Urban said when several minutes had passed and Hanley made no response. ‘Oh, by the way, I have spoken to the cavalry and to the Germans and none of them saw either of your fellows this morning.’

By chance the reconnaissance force’s advance had cut off a French foraging party. Suddenly two battalions had come rushing out of the gates to rescue them, one heading straight at the general and his staff and another at a company of the KGL. The senior officers evaded with ease – Lord Wellington’s expression scarcely changing – although sadly the Germans were overrun and dozens killed or taken. Hanley had wondered whether Sinclair or Dalmas was behind the sally. He did not think it likely, since the attackers made no real attempt to catch the general, but he had mentioned the thought.

‘No one saw a cuirassier or an officer in a pale green jacket,’ D’Urban explained, and then grinned. ‘Of course, the fiendish devils may have done something truly clever like changing their uniform!’

‘Sometimes the enemy can be most unreliable,’ Hanley replied, and soon staff and escort alike galloped off to stare at the fortress from another angle. ‘They seem to have vanished,’ he said
when they stopped again. ‘Perhaps they have both gone south to Seville?’

It was dark by the time the general, his staff and escort returned to Elvas. Hanley was tired and saddle-sore, having forgotten the pace at which Lord Wellington did everything. His meeting with Baynes was blessedly short, and the prospect of joining Jenny Dobson for the night brought on a thrill which easily overcame his weariness. Each visit to Elvas and encounter with the girl was becoming more pleasurable in every way.

Hanley made sure that he and the girl talked a good deal, along with eating, drinking and making love.

‘You remember Major MacAndrews,’ he said as they lay side by side on the bed at the end of a more than usually vigorous bout.

‘Dad thinks a lot of him.’

Hanley reached over and stroked her cheek. ‘Do you remember his family?’

‘Tall wife, getting on a bit, but still quite good looking and dressed well. Bit of a busybody, but meant it kindly and always wanted to play with everyone’s babies.’ Hanley liked the way Jenny summed people up.

‘And Miss MacAndrews?’

Jenny sat up and half turned to face him. ‘Her? Pretty, if you like ginger hair, which I can’t say I do, but all the officers sniffed after her like tomcats. I caught you looking at her a couple of times like she was a full bottle of gin and you were dying of thirst.’ She cuffed him lightly, leaning so that her breasts swayed in front of his face.

Hanley grinned, reached up and after a few happy moments Jenny lay down again.

‘Anything else?’ he asked.

‘Lovely clothes. Bit silly in some ways, but smart and kind. Had that Mister Williams dangling on a thread and kept playing with him like a cat. Are they wed now?’

‘No.’

‘Shagging?’

Hanley shook his head, and thought about how much work he still had to do.

‘Bloody fools. Dad reckons Williams is the bravest, best and daftest man he’s known. Think he thinks of him as a son.’ Dobson had been Williams’ front-rank man when he was a volunteer, standing in front of him in formation, and the old veteran had taken to the eager young Welshman.

‘Do you like her?’

Jenny was surprised, and took a moment to answer. ‘She helped me when I was having the baby. That means a lot.’ It was the first time she had mentioned her son. ‘It wasn’t really up to me to like her or not, but she’s all right.’

The girl sat up again. ‘I like you, Mister Hanley.’

‘I do get that impression,’ he said, and made a lunge.

‘I’m serious,’ she said after a few minutes of giggling struggle. ‘Always did like you because you’re not like all the other officers. You’re different from everyone else, just like me.’

‘I really am quite delightful,’ Hanley said happily. Jenny cuffed him again and he grabbed her and this time it was a while before they spoke again.

‘You are like me,’ the girl said in a little voice. She was not looking at him and just stared fixedly at the ceiling. ‘We don’t mean anyone any harm, but in the end we only care about ourselves.’

Hanley sensed she did not want to be interrupted, so lay beside her in silence. Here was another surprise.

‘I won’t ever be in love – not like in the books and plays,’ Jenny went on, and there was sadness in the words, but no trace of pity, unless for others who had more fanciful views of the world. ‘I like some men, may even one day want to be with just one, but I won’t love.

‘Never told anyone that,’ Jenny added after a moment. She gave a little laugh and kissed him on the cheek. ‘I can tell you because I like you, and I know you’ll never fall in love with me.’

‘Well, I might, just out of spite,’ he said. The girl rolled against him and he folded his arm around her.

‘So what about the major’s wife and lass?’ Jenny asked after a while. ‘You never ask about anyone else from them days.’

‘They are coming to Elvas. Should be here tomorrow if all goes well and will be living in a house not so very far from here. I want you to meet them – well, Miss MacAndrews certainly. There are some things I cannot teach you – the ways ladies behave, how they speak and act. Learn from them.’ That was the start of his plan, to shape the girl so that Jenny the whore and mistress became polished enough to be Mrs Hatch the courtesan. That way she could move in higher circles and be far more useful. From the beginning the idea delighted the girl, who longed for a life of silk rather than one of cotton and wool.

‘Do they know about this?’

‘Not yet,’ he confessed. ‘But I think they will help. I shall not explain everything. Enough to spark their sense of duty and no more. Young Jacob has been left behind in Lisbon under the care of a kind family in case that was worrying you.’

‘It wasn’t,’ she said, and for a while they simply lay in silence until Jenny burst out laughing.

‘Just thinking,’ she explained in answer to his puzzled look. ‘I’ll wager I could teach her a thing or two that would half kill Pug Williams on their wedding night if ever they have one.’

Mrs and Miss MacAndrews arrived early in the afternoon on the next day, having travelled the last stretches under the protection of a supply convoy. It was another drab day, with rain falling steadily, and overnight the Guadiana had risen so much that it was too deep for the temporary bridge planned to be placed near Badajoz.

‘More delays,’ Baynes told Hanley, ‘but at least this is one time that it is not anyone’s fault. The plans for the siege are being written as we speak, and the peer is off north tomorrow in case Masséna starts stirring again. There are some worrying reports coming in, and Colonel Murray writes that we may have badly
underestimated the speed with which a French army can recover. At the very least that means that no reinforcements will come here to join us.’

Hanley sensed that there was something else and waited.

Baynes handed him a letter. ‘There may be some good news. The third paragraph is the important piece and will give you all the details we have, but in essence this is it. Some partisans have captured an officer in French service masquerading as a British officer. He says he is an Irishman and gives the name of O’Keefe.’

‘The description could be anyone,’ Hanley said.

‘Agreed, but it might be Sinclair up to his old tricks in an area where he is not known. The rogue has vanished after all. He may have gone north instead of south. It is far easier for Soult’s army to send detachments or messages to Masséna at Salamanca than it was while he was in Portugal.’

‘Odd to send a man from the area and army he knows well.’

‘Yes,’ Baynes agreed, ‘which would suggest that either they have not done it and this is mere chance or they have done it for some very good reason. I am inclined to doubt that it is him, but I might be wrong and we do need to know.

‘I am sorry, my friend, but I must ask you to go with Lord Wellington and his escort when they ride north tomorrow. There is no one up there who could recognise Sinclair if we can reach the
guerrilleros
or persuade them to bring him in.’

‘Am I not needed here?’

‘By me or by the girl!’

Hanley gave a dutiful laugh. ‘I meant that we still do not understand what the French are doing.’

‘I will miss you, I most surely will,’ the merchant said. ‘But the siege will not begin for several days and you should be able to return here before it is resolved or before Soult marches against us. If it is Sinclair then find out what you can and then have him brought here. Come on ahead if it takes time to arrange an escort. I need you back, but we cannot ignore the chance of catching the rascal.’

Hanley understood, and saw the reasoning, even if he did
not relish the prospect of a hard ride at Lord Wellington’s rapid pace. He called on the ladies to welcome them, thank them for travelling all this way, and assure them of the good health of the major. It took longer to explain his request for their help. He had planned to speak first to the daughter, but Mrs MacAndrews insisted on staying.