Hervey 06 - Rumours Of War

by Allan Mallinson

  ‘Help those wounded there, Corporal!’

  He need not have said it, for the victor’s compassion had already moved two of the dragoons to dismount with their water bottles.

  ‘Bind the others’ hands, and then I shall question them. They must know a pretty thing or two.’

  ‘You speak proper French then, sir?’ asked Armstrong cheerily as he beckoned Claridge to do the tying.

  ‘I trust I do,’ replied Hervey. And trust he meant, for if his French was perfect he could not yet know it; the only native of France he had ever spoken with had been his governess. But she had spoken French with him from an early age; and Alsatian German. Now he would see if French chasseurs spoke the same.

  He looked again at the lifeless bodies. This was his work – one of them at least by his own hand. ‘Death to the French!’ Now he had done it; it was no mere toast any longer. And he could write to Daniel Coates at last: today I killed my first Frenchman. No, of course he could not. And it was over so quickly anyway – no time to think or be afraid. Not at all as he had imagined – as he had imagined since first wanting to be a soldier.

  One of the chasseurs, writhing, disembowelled, cried out suddenly, ‘Maman!’ Then he fell silent.

  Hervey shivered. ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.’ He checked himself: prayers could come later. For now, there was work to do. ‘Corporal Armstrong, send a man back to report, and two ahead to picket the other side of yonder trees!’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  DRAWING THE LINE

  Lisbon, 6 October 1826

  ‘I like Mrs Delgado,’ said Johnson as he laid out Hervey’s best tunic.

  Hervey did not reply, absorbed as he was by his newly acquired maps. His hand trembled a little, so that he had to peer more intently than usual. He liked these quarters in Reeves’s Hotel, but it was just so damnably cold, what with coal in short and expensive supply, and wood seemingly deficient of heat. It had been two days since he had stood before the Delgados’ great chimneypiece, and he had scarcely been warm since. But it had not been on account of inactivity, even in the absence, still, of orders from Colonel Norris. He had scoured the premises of the booksellers and cartographers of Lapa and the neighbouring districts until he had assembled a handy topographical library.

  He looked up, puzzled by the lacuna. Johnson’s statement of itself seemed to require no comment, but the absence of a consequential clause rendered his purpose obscure.

  ‘She’s a nice woman.’

  Hervey had not imagined so simple a resolution.

  ‘You give your opinion very decidedly. Nice: how so?’

  ‘Tha saw t’way she were wi’ that kiddlin’ of ’ers.’

  Hervey thought the observation fair. He wondered what Johnson made of his own parental efforts. ‘Is there anything else?’

  His voice mixed surprise and curiosity, but Johnson apparently heard neither. ‘Ay. She’s not stuck up. She talked to me just like Mrs ’Ervey used to.’

  Hervey smiled. It was good to be reminded from time to time – and by so indifferent an authority – of Henrietta’s qualities.

  ‘An’ she talks English as good as me.’

  Hervey raised his eyebrows, smiling still. ‘That would indeed be an extraordinary accomplishment.’

  ‘An’ tha should see ’er wi’ a sword.’

  Hervey put down the map. ‘When did you see her with one?’

  ‘Yesterday. I were takin’ that cheese in tha told me to, an’ she were practising in that courtyard o’ theirs.’

  ‘With a fencing master?’

  ‘I don’t know, but ’e looked as if ’e knew what ’e were doin’.’

  Hervey had returned to the Delgados’ house in Belem the day after his first call, with a present of Cheshire cheese coloured with Spanish annatto, and a pint tub of Epping butter. And he had stayed late.

  ‘Strange she never spoke of it,’ he mused.

  ‘She were quick, I’ll say that for ’er.’

  Hervey took up the map again.

  ‘’E’s a general then, ’er father?’

  ‘He’s a colonel in the militia.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Johnson, with a distinctly knowing note. ‘I thought ’e were gettin’ on a bit.’

  ‘I told you before: the baron was getting on, as you say, when first we came to Lisbon. Or so it seemed to us then.’

  ‘An’ that’s why ’e’s on t’right’n’s side then?’

  Hervey stopped to think. He had learned long ago that the more naive Johnson’s questions sounded, the more – on the whole – they contained some worthwhile perception. ‘I believe the baron is a man who considers that a settled order is for the greater good. He has not spoken of the merits of one brother over the other.’

  ‘But what I don’t understand is why t’oldest brother – Pedro?’

  Hervey nodded.

  ‘Why ’e doesn’t just be king of Portugal as well as Brazil?’

  Hervey laid down the map again and shook his head. ‘In truth I cannot tell you, for I believe it is very complex. Mr Canning was making long speeches in parliament on the business as we were sailing. But if there is civil war here then it could go very ill for England. That is the point on which we must determine our efforts.’

  Johnson was content for the time being. ‘Is there owt else then, sir?’

  Hervey cast an eye at the chair. His uniform for the evening was laid out; he did not need his groom to help him dress. ‘No. No, I don’t believe there is. I expect there’ll be orders tonight though – we’ve gone two full days without any, and Colonel Norris will have to give us something soon – so you had better see me back. You might tell Corporal Wainwright too; if he’s back from the livery, that is. And I shall want to go to Belem again. It seems the baron’s found a nice horse for me.’

  Johnson screwed up his face. ‘Not one o’ them Lucythings?’

  ‘Lusitanos, yes. They’re all right.’

  ‘They’re too araby. Right vicey little things they can be.’

  Hervey had no special fondness for arabs, even after his time in India; he would certainly never describe them as tractable. ‘But they’ve got bottom, have they not?’

  Johnson decided to hold his peace, suddenly remembering he had a letter to deliver: ‘Oh, ay – I’m sorry, sir; this came while tha were out.’

  Hervey took the envelope expecting a communication from Colonel Norris. His jaw dropped when he saw the handwriting and the words ‘by express’. He broke the seal quickly and began to read.

  ‘My God!’

  ‘Bad news, sir?’

  Hervey did not answer at once. He looked about the room, as if there might be something to enlighten him, and he scratched his head. ‘Come back in ten minutes with a boy who can run to the Rua dos Condes.’

  Johnson left looking faintly vexed.

  Hervey went to the writing table and took pen and paper from his morocco case. He made several false starts, screwing up the sheet each time and throwing it at the fire grate, until at last he found his voice:

  My dear Kat,

  Your arriving here has so astounded me that I pen you these brief words to say that I shall come by this evening, when duties permit. I dine with Colonel Norris and the others of my party at the legation, and I expect that it may be late before I might absent myself.

  Forgive this hasty note, but I must even now be about my business here.

  Your own,

  Matthew Hervey.

  He read it over. It seemed a cool response. But he had not the time to rewrite it; and even if he had he was not sure he could do better. He placed it in an envelope, wrote the address hurriedly, then sealed it.

  Johnson returned with a swarthy child dressed in a dirty yellow suit. ‘’E’s a postboy.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Hervey thought for a moment, decided to trust to Johnson’s against his own judgement, and gave the boy the envelope and a silver escudo. ‘Rua dos Condes?’

  The boy checked his oral instr
uctions with those on the envelope. He nodded. ‘Sim, senhor.’ Then he darted from the room.

  Hervey sighed. He supposed the boy would be strolling by the time he reached the street. He doubted he knew where the Rua dos Condes was, let alone had any intention of going there. How was it that so unpromising a lad could even read?

  ‘’E runs for t’hotel, sir. I shouldn’t worry.’

  Hervey knew there was little he could do now but trust; he was due at the legation in half an hour, and Colonel Norris wanted to see him first.

  ‘An acquaintance of mine from London, General Greville’s wife. She is here in Lisbon and invites me to dine.’

  ‘So tha won’t be gooin to t’embassy?’

  ‘Indeed I shall be, yes. And that is what I have said in my reply.’ Hervey heard his own trepidation in the words.

  But Johnson saw no occasion to press for enlightenment. ‘Anything else then, sir?’

  ‘Thank you, Johnson, no. I believe you may go now.’

  ‘Right. So I’ll see thee back, and I’ll ’ave young Wainwright ’ere an’ all.’

  Hervey hesitated. ‘No, on second thoughts – if there are any orders I’ll send for you. Otherwise reveille at seven, as usual.’

  When Johnson had gone, Hervey sat down wearily at his desk. He could not imagine what Kat thought she was doing coming to Lisbon like this. They had had it out a fortnight ago: he would not be many months here, he would write to her, she would go to stay with a sister. That was what they had said. Was this just another diverting opportunity, too good to miss, like Brussels before Waterloo? There was nothing like the prospect of a fight to heat the blood of a man in regimentals – Kat’s very words. Was that why she had followed him? He shook his head. How was he supposed to keep a liaison secret here? Perhaps he just ought not see her – after tonight (he would have to go to her tonight)? In all probability he would be leaving for the frontier tomorrow or the day after. Yes, that was probably his best course. He would warn her tonight that he would be leaving for the frontier at once, and that he would be unlikely to return until the party re-embarked for England, their work done. And meanwhile, he had better get himself into his Oxford mixtures, and to Colonel Norris’s quarters.

  The colonel’s sitting room was cold, although there was a fire. Hervey kept his cloak about him, as did the others, and took out his pocketbook.

  ‘Well, gentlemen,’ began Norris, packing tobacco into his pipe and eyeing them portentously. ‘We have a historic task before us.’ He paused again and looked at each of them in turn.

  Cope, the Rifles major, glanced at Hervey and mouthed silently ‘Bobadil’, the nickname Norris had acquired their first evening at sea.

  Norris was all bombast, they reckoned, and jealous bombast at that. No one was permitted an opinion but that it was his. Hervey studied him closely: not a military-looking man, for all his regimentals. He was shorter by a hand than any of them, which only made the bombast seem worse, and he had pronounced dewlaps; Hervey found himself counting them.

  ‘Yes indeed, a historic task. The very safety of the nation rests in our hands. The weight of responsibility is great, gentlemen. I feel it bearing upon me with full force.’

  Hervey could scarce believe it. And this, he supposed, from one of the duke’s own men. Bobadil; it was very apt indeed.

  ‘I say “historic” for so it shall prove, I feel sure. But also because we follow a historic precedent in what we shall soon undertake. One, I feel sure also, that the duke himself would esteem were he here.’

  Norris’s rhetoric discomfited all of them alike, but still no one spoke.

  ‘Gentlemen, you will be acquainted no doubt – if not at first hand then surely by learning – with the celebrated lines of Torres Vedras.’

  He searched each face before him for an answer, but in vain (for the statement hardly required one).

  ‘Just so. Well, gentlemen, the object of our reconnaissance to these shores is those very lines. If there be an invasion of the country, whether by Miguelistas or Spanish regulars, at Torres Vedras it shall be halted, just as the duke himself halted the French!’

  That much sounded prudent, thought Hervey, but it could not be the entire story.

  ‘The day after tomorrow, therefore, we set out to make a survey of the lines to assess their repair and service. Thereafter we shall make an estimate of the size of the force that will be required to garrison the lines in the event that His Majesty’s ministers are decided on intervening.’

  Hervey was now distinctly puzzled. The information concerning the fortifications would be available, would it not, and with greater accuracy than they could hope to achieve, in the Negócios Estrangeiros e Guerra? ‘May I ask, Colonel, when we shall make any forward reconnaissance?’

  ‘Forward? Forward where, Major Hervey?’

  ‘I mean at the frontier, Colonel. We are to suppose, are we not, that the Portuguese loyal to the regent will contest any crossing?’

  Colonel Norris looked surprised. ‘If they do, and if they are successful, then all well and good. But if not, then the lines of Torres Vedras shall bar an advance on Lisbon. It is very straightforward, Hervey.’

  Hervey chose to ignore the patronizing note, at least in his reply. ‘But might it not be prudent to render assistance to the Portuguese on the frontier too, Colonel? They might fight all the better with a few red coats among them.’

  ‘Or green ones,’ said Cope, the Rifles major.

  Colonel Norris did not appear to care for either the assessment or the drollery. ‘Gentlemen, I fail to understand your purpose. We are not engaged in a game.’

  Hervey bit his tongue. He reckoned he had been shot over a great many times more than had Colonel Norris.

  Major Cope answered for him. ‘Might we not with advantage, Colonel, divide our effort? My skill, and Hervey’s too, I imagine, is that of the battle of manoeuvre, not of fortification and fieldworks. With yourself, and Griffith and Mostyn here, there should be ample expertise in surveying the lines at Torres Vedras. You could therefore send Hervey and me to the frontier.’

  Colonel Norris’s brow furrowed. ‘Major Cope, I am surprised at you. It is one of the fundamental principles of war, is it not, that effort be not divided?’ He rummaged among the papers on his writing table until he found the one with the evidence he needed. ‘Let me quote to you the exact words the Duke of Wellington himself used when he made his submission to the cabinet soon after he landed here all those years ago. It still serves: “As the whole country is frontier it would only be possible to make the capital and its environs secure.” ’ He placed the paper down and looked at the major with a smile not unlike one of pity. ‘So you will see, sir, that I am immovable on this point.’

  Colonel Norris’s notion of the concentration of effort was, indeed, curious, thought Hervey, but he saw no way of outflanking it at that moment – and no way, certainly, of reminding him that the duke had baited Masséna well forward and brought him all unknowing and ill-prepared on to the lines, thus greatly magnifying their effect. No one could ever again be taken by surprise there. And what was more, the duke had laid waste to the country for fifty miles, so that there was not a bean to be had in the fields. The French had starved and sickened before Torres Vedras, and then they had simply gone away, like whipped dogs. Was that what Norris was contemplating? Even if there was time (which there surely was not?) they could not devastate the country again, for every man they turned out of his home would at once become a Miguelista.

  No, the plan as conceived in Norris’s mind could not serve. But for the time being he would have to remain silent.

  Dinner was a muted affair, only Colonel Norris seeming to have appetite for speech, expounding at length on his plans to emulate the Duke of Wellington’s feat of arms. The majors held their peace. Even the engineers were persuaded that to survey only fixed defences was not prudent, but Norris in full flow was not to be contradicted. Mr Forbes, the chargé, said little. He was not a military man, neither di
d he appear to have any particular intelligence of the state of the country outside the capital, although he had certainly seen the formidable natural and man-made defences at Torres Vedras, Wellington’s great stratagem.

  The party broke up a little before ten-thirty, leaving Hervey to hurry back to Reeves’s, where he changed into a plain coat, and then engaged a calash to take him to Lady Katherine Greville’s lodgings in the Rua dos Condes.

  It was no very great distance, but the streets were narrow and the night dark. A dozen years ago he would scarcely have noticed; Warminster, the nearest place of any consequence to where he was raised, would have looked much the same, for the rate-payers there had no desire to light the way to the ale houses for the town roughs. But he had lived long in India, where lanterns and fires burned all night, tended by the chowkidars; and lately he had been an habitué of London, where gas – not even oil – lit the streets from dusk till dawn. In the summer, he recalled, Lisbon would be full of promenaders at this hour taking the cooler air, exchanging formal greetings, or else flirtations, with the females who occupied the ubiquitous balconies. But now the streets were deserted.

  He arrived at Kat’s lodgings at a quarter to midnight. The house was shuttered, but there was a torch burning at the door. He paid the coachman and dismissed him, then pulled the bell handle. Almost at once there was the noise of bolts being drawn, and a lady’s maid whom Hervey recognized from Holland Park opened the door just wide enough to admit him.

  ‘Her ladyship is in the drawing room, sir,’ she said cautiously, even furtively.

  The doors of the drawing room were half open. Hervey saw Kat standing by the fire, her back to him, looking in the mirror above the chimneypiece.

  ‘You come most carefully upon your hour, Matthew.’

  Hervey could not recall being precise as to any hour in his note. ‘I came at once, Kat. As soon as I was able.’

  She turned, and smiled. ‘I’m sure you did, Matthew. Are you not happy to see me?’