by Iain Gale
The remainder of that stage of the journey was passed in silence, and when they stopped for lunch at the same time as the previous day Wenger clearly felt too awkward to make conversation. As they sat in the little inn at Palencia, eating a meagre lunch of bread and broth, and Wenger turned to give the guards an order, Keane spoke quietly to Archer.
‘You know, I think we might just have a chance here. He’s a very suggestible fellow and clearly his conscience is troubled about delivering us to the firing squad.’
‘But, sir, he can’t go against the order. He would simply exchange places with us. It would be him at the end of the guns.’
‘True, but if we can persuade him to allow us to effect an escape without implicating him, then all might be well.’
*
The next stage of the afternoon brought new revelations. They had not gone more than ten miles when Wenger spoke. ‘I apologize, captain. I feel that I have been less than gracious. You took me into your confidence and I have nothing to offer you. I am deeply embarrassed by the behaviour of my countrymen.’
Keane smiled at him. ‘You are very kind, monsieur, but your apology is not necessary. As soldiers we accept our fate, do we not, Archer? We are quite resigned to what awaits us. I am only surprised as it was not what I would have expected from the sort of honourable Frenchman with whom I have had the pleasure to be engaged with in battle these past twenty years.’
Keane looked at Wenger’s face and for a moment he thought the man was going to burst into tears. Clearly something he had said had struck a note. And he thought that he knew what it might be.
At length Wenger spoke. ‘I have to tell you, captain – Lieutenant Archer, you too – I do not like Colonel de la Martinière.’
He paused before going on. ‘He is not a popular man. Do you understand what I mean? In the army. He is a most unpopular man. In fact I would go so far as to say that he is hated. Yes, hated, captain.’
Keane said nothing and inside was jubilant. This could not have been a better reaction. He prayed that it would develop.
Within a few minutes Wenger spoke again. ‘I admire your courage, Captain Keane. You are an extraordinarily brave man and a great soldier. And you too, lieutenant. In Captain Keane here you have a great model to live up to.’
He looked puzzled and then looked away, as if suddenly realizing that as both men had a death sentence upon them Archer’s aspirations would never be realized.
He spoke again, with some feeling in his voice. ‘I feel that in the past two days, you and I, captain, we have become close. Almost friends?’
Keane looked back at him. ‘Yes, captain, I would dearly like to think so. I would like to count myself your friend. It would matter to me a great deal before I go to meet my maker, as has been ordained by your superiors.’
Wenger looked at him and for a moment Keane saw in his eyes almost his own image. It was the look of a man who, faced with an insufferable truth, will try his best to overcome that impossibility. The look of a man who would take on the world to help his friend. The look of a man who would help him.
*
But it was not until the three of them were alone in their shared room that night in the inn at Burgos that at length Wenger spoke. ‘Captain Keane, I know enough about you to know that you are a man of honour. That whatever you have done against the empire counts as little in the face of the fact that you are an officer and, if I may say so, a quite extraordinary man. It would be against my nature and against all the principles and codes by which I stand to allow you to be murdered by Fouché’s thugs.’
‘Fouché?’
‘The emperor’s ex-chief of secret police, who still effectively controls Paris, if not all France, with his own men. To that end, I have decided that when we reach Bayonne, you will escape.’
Keane smiled and clapped him on the back in a gesture of thanks.
‘I thank you, captain, for delivering us from Monsieur Fouché. I am forever in your debt. To Bayonne!’
The plan appeared to have worked.
*
The following day, their last full day travelling together, was spent in more storytelling. Keane, anxious to preserve the companionable mood in which he had put Wenger, spoke warmly of their relations with some of the French they had encountered. He told him in particular detail of the fight at Coimbra in which he and his men had defended the French garrison from the onslaught of Portuguese militia. He also, gauging his moment, related the story of the French spy and his underhand and barbaric methods. It caused the predicted revulsion.
They stopped for just over an hour at Miranda, and crossing the Ebro they passed through Vitoria in the late afternoon and began to climb steadily into the mountains beyond. After twenty miles they came to a halt at the village of Bergara. Not wanting to revisit the same territory they had traversed so heavily the previous night, and sure in the certainty that Wegner would now do everything he could to allow them to escape, Keane decided that the best way for them to pass the last evening was with several bottles of wine. But at the same time he would ensure that the French captain drank more than he and Archer.
As they sat down in the otherwise quiet tavern, Keane pulled a bag from his pocket, took out four gold coins and pressed them on the landlord. The man, clearly astonished that a prisoner of the French should do such a thing, was only too pleased and produced two of his finest bottles with which to wash down their supper of roast rabbit and tortilla.
Wenger sat with the two English officers a distance away from the dragoons, whose officers sat together, close to the sergeants. Silver as usual messed on his own, and engaged the landlord’s wife in conversation in Spanish.
Occasionally the dragoon officers shot Wenger a disapproving glance, but he was beyond caring. As far as he was concerned, Keane and Archer were in his care and he would choose how to deal with them. Wenger was only too happy to accept Keane’s hospitality. It seemed almost as if he had been waiting for this excuse. He raised his glass to toast Keane’s health.
‘You are very kind, captain. I am sorry that we shall lose you tomorrow.’
Keane froze for a moment. ‘Lose us?’ His blood ran cold.
‘Yes, when you leave us at Bayonne and I return to my duties at Salamanca.’
‘Yes, of course, at Bayonne.’
He hoped that in his cups the Frenchman would not say too much, particularly with the dragoons looking on. ‘Lose’ was rather too obvious a word, although to anyone overhearing their conversation it might also have meant the worst interpretation of de la Martinière’s orders.
*
Wenger had promised to give Keane an idea of how and when might be their best time to make a run for it, but had not done so to date. The wine was enough to loosen his tongue.
‘There is a place as we enter the town. I know it well. We will arrive in the late afternoon. We will all be tired. The place will be sleepy. It is a very small square, not much used by the troops of the garrison. When I was there we hardly ever went there and certainly not at that time of day. I will halt the coach in a square and the men will be looking for somewhere to spend the night. I can guarantee that when we get there the thoughts of the dragoons will be upon quite different things. We will have no trouble from them. We will dismount from the coach and I will dismiss the escort and then, while the men are getting your sergeant down from the roof and putting themselves in order, you will take me prisoner.’
‘I will?’
‘You will. You will take my pistol and hold it to my head. You will then walk with me and your two friends as I direct you across the square and into an alleyway. There you will hit me.’
‘I will hit you?’
‘Yes, of course. You have my permission to hit me, captain.’
‘I’m sorry? I’m to hit you?’
‘Of course. How else are we to make it seem that I have not ass
isted you? You must assault me.’
Keane poured more wine. ‘Very well. You’re quite happy with this?’
‘Of course. I consider it my duty as an officer. Captain Keane, we have discussed this enough. We both know what must be done to satisfy honour in this matter. This is the only way.’
Keane noticed from the corner of his eye that the two green-coated dragoon officers had risen from the table and were walking towards them. He nudged Archer beneath the table and nodded to Captain Wenger, who turned to them.
‘Good evening, Captain Duvalle, lieutenant.’
‘Good evening, Captain Wenger. You seem very happy to sit with our prisoners. Are they so very interesting that they persuade you to reject our company?’
Wenger stood up. ‘Don’t be silly, Duvalle, I’m not rejecting your company. I find Captain Keane’s exploits highly entertaining, as you would too if you cared to listen.’
Duvalle bristled. ‘I do not care to share the table with a man who colludes with the guerrilla. And nor should you, Wenger.’
‘Oh, don’t be such an ass, Duvalle. Captain Keane is no more a guerrilla than you or I.’
‘But he does know them and has used them. And they in turn have profited from him and they have killed more of my men than I care to recall. He is no better than . . . a guerrilla in a red coat. He is a spy, Wenger. No more, no less.’
There was silence for a moment. Keane could not deny any of the facts. He had worked closely with the guerrillas, with Sanchez and Morillo and others. And the guerrillas had perpetrated ghastly atrocities against the French. In particular against the dragoons, who were often used as escorts for couriers, their prime target. Keane stood up and nodded a greeting at Duvalle. ‘Captain, I cannot deny that what you say is true, although I take exception at the use of the word “spy”. I am a British officer and courtesy demands certain etiquette. As regards the guerrillista, I, like you, abhor the methods of many of the guerrillas, as does my commander Lord Wellington. We have done everything possible to dissuade them from such practices.’
The dragoon officer shrugged. ‘That may be, but it has had no effect. You might have seen some of my men. They’re the ones you see hanging from the olive trees as you pass along the roads observing our armies and stealing information. The ones with no arms or legs, or genitals. Stripped, dismembered, disembowelled and blinded. That’s the work of your Spanish friends. They’re very talented butchers.’
‘Yes, captain, and as I say, I am sorry for the atrocity. I have done all I could to prevent it. Although it is done, I might add, in response to the acts of your own countrymen.’
Wenger spoke. ‘For heaven’s sake, Duvalle, Captain Keane has told me how he personally intervened to stop a French officer being tortured to death.’
‘And how did he manage that?’
Keane interjected. ‘The only way I could. I shot him myself.’
Duvalle said nothing, but turned and walked away with his lieutenant.
Wenger and Keane sat down. Wenger spoke. ‘I apologize.’
‘There’s no need for that. No need at all. I have seen what the guerrillas do. Of course. We all have. And I have tried. But this war is not like any other. It is a war of the people. A war in which your countrymen under their emperor are trying to conquer not just a great land but a great people. And that is why we are here. We are fighting for their freedom.’
Wenger smiled and took a drink. ‘Perhaps also though you are fighting for your own country. Not for its freedom, but for its wealth. Isn’t that true?’
Keane nodded. ‘Yes, I can’t deny that. But as a soldier I would rather think that I was risking my life and those of my men for something more noble than money.’
Archer grinned. ‘That’s true enough, sir. But you must admit that sometimes, for the men, gold can be the best motive.’
Keane looked at him and raised an eyebrow. What did he mean, ‘for the men’? Clearly Archer had taken his role play as an officer to heart and now felt himself a class above the others. Keane played along. ‘Yes, Archer, you’re quite right. The “men” do appreciate the baser things in life. As Wellington says, the army is as loyal to its rum ration as it is to him.’
Wenger laughed, making the two dragoons look round at him. ‘I should like to meet your Lord Wellington, whatever my commanders say of him.’
‘Who knows – perhaps some day that might be arranged.’
Wenger lowered his voice. ‘Now, just to make sure we have it right. Remember, Keane, I don’t want you to play with me; I want to feel the full force. You must do it as if it is real.’
Keane smiled. ‘Very well, captain. I’ll do it as if it is real.’ He turned to the landlord and called for another two bottles of the Rioja. ‘And you had better pray, my friend, that you drink enough of this stuff to make you feel nothing.’
*
They reached the outskirts of Bayonne in the mid-afternoon of the following day, having made the twenty-six miles from Bergara to San Sebastian by midday and another thirty from there to Bayonne in three hours. They approached the coastal town from the Ustaritz road from the south, and the first thing that Keane noted was the strength of the walls of the citadel. Bayonne was a classic star fort, built by the great Vauban and well placed to defend the mouth of the river Adour on which it sat. Before a high castellated and turreted wall with seven bastions lay two defensive lines of triangular demi-lunes, split as was the town by a tributary of the river, while beyond these at half a mile lay more defensive earthworks, and to the right the natural defences of a large salt marsh with on the left a forest of pines. Rising up beyond the town, across the river, they could just make out the shape of the citadel, with more high bastions. It made Badajoz look like easy pickings and Keane wondered if they would ever have the misfortune to lay siege to it. He stared hard, attempting to etch the look of the place in his head so that he might draw an image of it as soon as might be practical.
The coach rumbled on through the huge gate and past the towering cathedral on the left of the road. They had not gone more than a few narrow streets beyond the church, however, when Wenger rapped on the roof with his cane and shouted to the driver to stop. Looking through the windows, Keane saw that they were in a small square of tall, half-timbered houses rising above stone colonnades. The place was quiet, the inhabitants, presumably including the garrison, still taking their afternoon siesta.
The coach pulled up abruptly and Wenger looked at Keane and nodded before pushing open the door and stepping out. One of the guards motioned to Keane and Archer to get out and they did so in turn. One of the dragoons cut Silver free from his ropes and escorted him down to join his comrades. The rest of the dragoons had assembled in two ranks in the square and were being given orders by Captain Duvalle. Seeing Keane emerge, he rode across to Wenger.
‘Captain Wenger, I think our job is done. The prisoners are yours.’
‘Yes, Captain Duvalle. You are discharged from your escort duty. Thank you.’
Duvalle saluted and, with a last glaring glance at Keane, turned to face his men. After a few commands they were off, riding in column of twos across to the far side of the square, where they left down the widest of the side streets in the direction of the bridge across to the barracks at the citadel.
Looking across to Wenger, Keane saw that the French captain had tucked his pistol into his belt. Wenger glanced at him and he knew the moment had come. He looked back at the second guard, who was only just dismounting from the coach, and in a single swift action moved close to Wenger and took the pistol from his belt, cocking the hammer and placing the muzzle close against the captain’s temple.
The four guards instinctively raised their muskets, but stopped quickly when Keane spoke to them in French.
‘Do nothing. Put down your guns.’
Wenger, feigning fear, nodded and the guards obeyed. Keane motioned to Archer, w
ho picked up one of the muskets and, using the bayonet, herded the guards together, making them stand in a huddle beside the coach. Silver was with them now. He took two of the guards and used the rope with which he had been tied to bind their hands together before forcing them to mount the step and climb into the carriage. Then, using the driver’s whip, he bound the hands of the other two guards in the same way and made them do the same before shutting the carriage door. At the same time Archer moved his musket from the guards to the driver, who sat above the horses, terrified. Then, making sure that the driver continued to watch, Keane slowly walked away from the coach with Wenger, all the time keeping the pistol close up against the captain’s temple. Wenger had told them to make for the street at the northern corner of the square and this they did. A shutter opened and a face appeared, only to disappear instantly at the disturbing sight which greeted it.
Entering the side street, Keane relaxed the pressure of the gun on Wenger’s head and after a few yards dropped it entirely. Archer, who along with Silver had picked up two of the grounded muskets, made to hand one to Keane, who shook his head before turning to the French captain.
‘Thank you, captain. I really can never thank you enough.’
‘It is no more than I would do for any officer, of any army, in such circumstances. But for you, Captain Keane, it was a real pleasure.’
‘Should the need ever arise, captain, don’t hesitate to call on me. I am at your service. I truly hope that your actions will not have put your own life at risk.’
Wenger laughed. ‘Don’t worry, captain. All cats have nine lives. I must have at least three of mine left. Haven’t you forgotten something?’
‘You’re quite sure about this?’
‘Certainly. It’s my alibi. May I turn away?’
‘Please, and thank you again.’