"What happened, Major Taft? Definitely self-murder, was it? No possibility that they might have been given flying lessons?"
"You mean like swimming, sir? Thrown in either to sink or to learn quickly? No, sir – there was half of a company sat up on the roof and watching them for lack of any sight more interesting while they smoked their pipes, sir. They jumped, sir. They shouted something, but there was no interpreter there so we know not what they said. There was just the big thumping sound after that as they hit the rocks at the bottom - but neither screamed. When we recovered the bodies they were already dead. It took a few minutes, walking round from the gate and climbing over the boulders to get to them, so they might have bled to death the meanwhile, but they were both gone when we reached them. We told the Marchioness, sir, and she took it very well - no tears and lamentations at all!"
"Was she surprised?"
Taft had not considered that point, was unable to give a certain answer.
"I must speak to her myself. She may wish to leave the Castle, perhaps to retire to Lisbon - presumably the Marquis would have a house there. In any case, some arrangements must be made for a burial. I wonder what the rules are here for the funeral of a suicide. Are they allowed on consecrated ground? I know that in England the rule is for those the coroner holds to have committed felo-de-se to be put down at the side of a field rather than in a churchyard, and without a clergyman present to pray for them. Do you know what Catholics do, Major Taft?"
The major did not, but said that whatever it was and however outlandish, he would not be surprised.
It was not a helpful comment.
Both knew that there was a small chapel and a crypt tucked away into a corner of the walls, presumably for the benefit of the family; it was not large enough to take the deaths of the whole population of the Castle.
The Marchioness was dressed in proper mourning clothes, well veiled, and with a priest at her side. Septimus recognised the man, had seen him hanging about the place over the previous week.
"I beg your pardon for the intrusion, ma'am, but we must discuss what is to be done regarding interment of your late husband and his son."
She spoke briefly to the priest, presumably translating; he replied at some length.
"There is a church beside the manor house in the valley. They should be buried there, Colonel."
Septimus shook his head.
"We would not want French hussars to join the cortege, ma'am. They are certainly on the hills by now and I would expect them in the valley before nightfall. We fought them only yesterday."
"They cannot be placed in the family vault here, Colonel, in the circumstances."
"That I appreciate, ma'am. There would be the same difficulty in England. What has your spiritual adviser to suggest?"
Septimus was quite proud of that phraseology; very respectful!
Unfortunately, the priest could imagine no satisfactory alternative. The graveyards were all in or immediately outside of the villages, wherever there was a church or chapel, and those in the nature of things were down in the valley where the people lived, not up in the empty hills.
"Then there must be a temporary expedient, ma'am. They must be put away for a few months, until the spring at least when the French will be driven off again, or so it is planned."
They did not like the idea; the grave was not expected to give up its dead before Judgement Day, and that was not anticipated for the spring.
"If we have a siege over winter then there will be more dead, ma'am. Will it be possible to consecrate a patch of ground for the purpose of disposing of them?"
It would not - for the bulk of the soldiers must be Protestant, and heretics must not lie for eternity in the company of the faithful.
"Two patches of ground?"
That could be done, but they must be kept distinct and quite separate.
"Will you beg the reverend gentleman to make the appropriate dispositions, ma'am?"
Septimus found himself short of patience with such fuss and bother; if it was important to them, however, then he would raise no objections. Keeping the peace was more important than arguing points of dogma.
"Now, ma'am, what are you to do? Do you intend to remain in this place or will you wish to retire to a Dower House, or its Portuguese like?"
"Will the Castle come under siege, Colonel?"
"Possibly, ma'am, but I doubt it will amount to a formal investment. The French will be very hard put to bring a train of siege artillery over the hills, and they could not use the sea; the Navy would not let them. In olden times it was often the case, I believe, that catapults and such could be made on site from trees chopped down locally. One cannot do that with siege cannon. They might try an immediate assault, ladders to the walls, but I am inclined to doubt it. The cannon that have been emplaced here will hold off any realistic attack, and my soldiers will protect the guns."
"Then I should stay with my people, Colonel. If the need should arise then I shall lead them back towards Lisbon."
"Very good, ma'am. As you are remaining, you will be able to assist me if you will be so good, ma'am. I have in custody a rather foolish gentleman, a Count of sorts, and some six of his younger children. His lady and the three eldest of his boys refused to join our return to the Castle. I believe it was their intention to place themselves in the hands of the French, having taken offence when I burned down their manor house."
"One cannot imagine why so minor a matter should annoy them so much, Colonel!"
"Quite, ma'am! One might have hoped they would have been proud to sacrifice their all for their country!"
"If your tales of the French are correct, then no doubt they have done so already."
"I would expect them to have been killed, ma'am. If not, then they may have been given sanctuary. It would be a matter of luck, I fear; if there should happen to be a senior officer present at the exact moment they are discovered, then they may survive. What of the Count, ma'am?"
"He is a fool, a man of little charm and less brain. Can he not be sent back to Lisbon?"
"I would prefer that he was held where his foolish mouth might do little harm. I have no doubt that he will complain mightily of having been burned out, and there are those who might consider him to have a grievance. French sympathisers might make much of his plight."
"I will discover a lodging for him in the Castle. Six children, you said?"
"One grown girl and three smaller and two little boys. All showed well on the march across, ma'am. The girl particularly behaved as an adult - far more of a man than her Papa!"
"I must look about for a husband for her, I suspect. Better than that she should remain in a garrison without protection."
"She will not be assaulted, ma'am, that I can assure you!"
"I did not suppose she might be, but seduction could be another matter. Handsome, dashing young officers in scarlet coats might turn any young lady's head - or, indeed, lift her skirts!"
Septimus was forced to admit that the Marchioness might well be right - a pretty young girl and two dozen and more of single officers was an inflammable mix.
"What of your majors, Colonel? Might either be an eligible parti for the eldest daughter of a Count?"
"Perceval is wed, to a very wealthy young lady who is a mother already, and may well have produced another in these last weeks. He is indeed, I believe, very happy in her company. Major Taft, the younger, junior man, is single and of good family. He is a younger son but has an income for life. I would imagine that his family would expect him to marry sensibly."
She interpreted that word correctly, shaking her head.
"The Count is not a rich man. Well bred, as goes without saying, but short of cash even before you burned him out. There would be no dowry I am certain, Colonel."
"Then, except Major Taft fell hopelessly in love, I fear there could be no marriage."
Septimus thought it wiser to have a quiet word with Major Taft.
"The young girl who came in with u
s, Major Taft."
"Pretty little thing, ain't she, sir!"
"Very! Eldest daughter to the Count."
Taft looked hopeful.
"Not a bean to his name."
Taft shrugged realistically.
"Ah, well, sir. It was a thought."
"But will be no more than that, I trust, sir. I do not wish to have a posse of outraged Portuguese grandees on my doorstep!"
"Marriage or nothing, sir?"
"Exactly so, Major Taft!"
"My old father wrote me just before we sailed, sir. Said he had been talking with an East India merchant, a nabob sort of chappie; got a daughter - well enough in her way, been taught the right way of going on. Fifty thousand, cash on the nail, he said!"
"Two thousands a year in the Four Per Cents - not to be sneezed at!"
"In for a share of the inheritance as well. Just the one brother, the others and her mother dying of a fever before leaving India. Could be twice as much in trust for the children, sir."
"Make yourself a colonel and there is every possibility of a baronetcy, Major Taft - as I well know! Perhaps the old chap would come down with a house and a few acres for his daughter, and you could become a country gentleman."
"Better than a Portuguese Count's daughter, however pretty she may be, sir! Besides that, she would be a Papist as well!"
That preserved the maiden from one source of pursuit; she might be expected to be sufficiently level-headed to have no use for a junior officer. If not, well, there was always a place for a mistress in the baggage train, and none of the young men were in any position to take a wife in any case, and they would need the Colonel's permission to wed, and that would not be forthcoming.
Septimus turned his mind to more important questions. The defence of the Castle and the harassment of the French were his primary tasks; protecting young girls from themselves was far lower on his list of priorities.
Boredom would be the greatest single problem, as Major Perceval had pointed out. They might be five months in garrison in the Castle, locked away behind stone walls. It would be possible to send one company at a time back on the road to Lisbon, route-marching for the exercise, but that would be fairly much a futile endeavour – work for its own sake, pointless in its own right.
They must carry the war to the French, pinprick raids of little intrinsic value perhaps, but good experience for the men and perhaps establishing a spirit of more or less friendly competition between the companies. There might be a prize, for example, for the company that brought in the greatest number of French muskets or shakoes or suchlike trophies each month. He would have to make very clear that heads would not be acceptable as a proof of French casualties. Horses would be a good idea – the Army paid prize-money for horses brought into the lines and the men would have a direct financial incentive – silver dollars that could be converted into local wine and brandy would be very popular.
Septimus called his officers together next day.
“There are local men, hunters, who know the small tracks over the hills, gentlemen. With the aid of the Marchioness I have identified a dozen who will be happy to lead us out over winter.”
The younger men all thought this to be an excellent thing – sport!
“We shall send out small patrols over the next few days, to map out the French dispositions. They will have foraging parties out, attempting to live off the land, and I would expect them to occupy the villages in the valley below us. Once we know where they are we can proceed to make life uncomfortable for them. They may well also, one must imagine, attempt to take the Castle or bypass it in their attempt to reach Lisbon. This must offer us any number of opportunities for amusement. We must keep the men occupied, and, it goes without saying, under discipline. Busy little engagements with the French will do their spirits no end of good – the great bulk of the men thoroughly enjoy fighting. I am sure you can all think up ways of enlivening the business for the men – little competitions and such.”
They had an entertaining fortnight before, inevitably, the French took steps to restrain them.
“The French are building an emplacement to cover the foot of the ravine, sir. It would seem that they are more concerned to keep us back than to advance themselves.”
“Logical, Mr Purkiss. One could hardly pass an army along this track and it would certainly be necessary to take the Castle before attempting to do so. It would also be very difficult to march across the hills to bring themselves in numbers into the valley. This must be no more than a side issue to their campaign; they will, as it were, merely be seeking to block the rabbit holes through which we might bolt. We may amuse ourselves by making them very expensive rabbit holes, sir.”
Septimus walked down the ravine to see for himself, Lieutenant Purkiss and his half-company at his side. There was little point to taking the risk of going forward unescorted.
They sat down, uncomfortably, in the thorn scrub overlooking the track where it joined the valley and watched the French at their labours.
“Artillerymen, I believe, though my knowledge of French uniforms is very slight. Two full batteries of twelve pound cannon; ten of them and two howitzers, each behind a stone wall, dry laid. Limbers are well back, also behind stone. Where are their animals?”
Purkiss pointed down the valley to the fields.
“Put out to graze and regain their condition, sir. They will be tired for having dragged their guns across the bulk of Spain and then up the hills to get here.”
“I had hoped they might be closer, so that we could lift them. Guns with no horses will not retreat very far.”
“They will have a guard, I would expect, sir.”
“Infantry, I would imagine, for guns and horses alike. Later in the winter the guard on the horses will be the greater, the men being increasingly hungry. Can we see an encampment of infantry nearby?”
“No, sir. There are sentries out, but they are in the same uniform as the men working on the batteries.”
“Are they holding posts or walking a patrol?”
They picked out six men holding muskets, positioned singly to the front of the emplacements.
“Have a word with your sergeant, Mr Purkiss. Discover whether he has men who could sneak or crawl across the grassland with a sharp knife. The discovery at dawn of six dead sentries could cause a degree of upset among those gunners.”
Purkiss thought it unlikely that his men would number experienced murderers among their ranks, but he said that he would ask. He came back much disturbed.
“Sergeant Klopp has found eight men who say that they can deal with the sentries, sir. He says that he is sure of three of them, believing that they have cut more than one throat in their past; of the other five he knows them to be poachers and sneak-thieves but is not certain of their ability to kill in cold blood. He thinks it possible that faced with a young soldier all unsuspecting they might not be able to use their blade. He says that he will pair them off, each with an older soldier who might not be so stealthy but will watch them in and will stare disapprovingly at them if they hang back at the last moment.”
“’Stare disapprovingly’?”
“I asked that. He said that after they had stared they would kick them where it hurts, sir!”
“Not quite looking them in the eye, Mr Purkiss, but no doubt more effective. Let us wait till dark and then deal with the little task.”
They watched as the gunners ended their labours for the day and lit their fires and cooked meals of very barely adequate size. They sat round the fires for less than an hour before setting out their blankets for sleep.
“Not much food and hardly any drink, sir – I doubt they had a mouthful each from those few wine bottles.”
“Ah well, Mr Purkiss, no doubt they will thank us for killing off a few mouths – it will leave more for those surviving.”
They waited two hours and then Sergeant Klopp led Mr Purkiss out with two platoons as well as the eight assassins and their partners.
Septimus watched patiently, able to see nothing other than the embers of the cooking fires; he heard nothing for more than half an hour. His platoon sat quietly whispering, laying odds, he gathered, on who would make the most kills and whether Mr Purkiss would throw up his breakfast when he saw a man with a slit throat.
There was the sudden flame of twenty muskets in the night, followed by the crash of the volley.
“That’s a few of the little buggers ain’t goin’ to wake up no more!”
“See how good they Frogs are – all of us can load in the dark, but I bet they ain’t never learned ‘ow.”
The anonymous voice was correct; no fire returned from the gunners in their bivouacs.
“Men comin’ in, sir. Can hear they runnin’.”
“Watch them, make certain they are ours.”
“They’s all goin’ to call out if they is, sir. Listen now!”
The sergeant’s voice sounded a few minutes later – time dragged in the dark and Septimus did not know how long it was.
“Klopp!”
“Clip!”
The unofficial countersign caused an outburst of giggles among the men. Septimus grinned, betting to himself that the sergeant was nicknamed ‘Horsey’.
They counted the men in. Two full platoons, corporals confirming all were present, and then the eight killers and their minders and finally Lieutenant Purkiss.
“Report, Lieutenant.”
Septimus made a point of his formality – all was to be done properly, no more of laughter.
“All of the sentries were disposed of, sir, as a first action. All in silence. The men then pressed forward and got in among one of the parties of gunners, sir, and killed them – no exact count, sir, but at least one each for the sixteen of them. On the whistle, sir, the two formed platoons fired a volley into the largest bivouac; we did not see how many were killed or wounded, sir. We then fell back, sir, the platoons leap-frogging to cover each other. No casualties among our people, sir.”
Blood and Famine (Man of Conflict Series, Book 4) Page 9