An Act Of Courage h-7

by Allan Mallinson

  Hervey scarcely heard the regrets, intent as he was on learning what constituted the correspondence. The physician saw, and took his leave. Hervey opened the letter as soon as the door was closed, looked at once for the signature – Dom Mateo’s – then began to read.

  18th December 1826My dear friend,The Nation will soon have cause to honour your name, for so gallant an action as yours this day will not long remain unextolled. But for the mean time it must perforce be so until I myself have exhausted every prospect of securing your release.

  Hervey quickened. The English was as apposite and elegant as when the writer spoke it, an unusual accomplishment, in his experience, no matter how fluent a man in speech not native to him. And it brought a great measure of relief in the assurance that Lisbon would not yet know of his predicament. He read on.Your friends, I may assure you, are all well and safe, and your design admirably accomplished.

  This latter surprised him – not the fact of the success, but that the censor had not thought it proper to excise. Perhaps the phrasing was equivocal, as no doubt the author intended. But three days ago, when their ruse de guerre had been tumbled, he had bought time for the little brigade to run for safety in the fortress at Elvas by his solitary walk, captive, to the enemy’s lines. He had had no idea since whether they had made that sanctuary or not, and it cheered him greatly, now, to learn that they had. The reference to ‘friends’ he took to mean Corporal Wainwright, and for that, too, he was greatly relieved.I beg you would reply with indications of your own condition.

  Hervey wondered if he would be permitted to, or whether ‘the authorities’ would oblige Dom Mateo only with their own assurances. But allowing him to receive such a missive in the first place, and from the very man who stood astride their advance on Lisbon, was promising. He read on. There were more felicities but little of real consequence. He knew Dom Mateo not so very well, but enough to know that he was capable of checking his instinct, and that the words would be measured. Dom Mateo’s intention in this subterfuge would have been, first, to communicate his own advantageous situation in Elvas, then the safety of the admirable Wainwright, and finally that he himself regarded the incarceration of his friend as a matter for local resolution – hence the reference to ‘every prospect of securing your release’.

  How Hervey prayed that it would be so! It was not merely the thought of Colonel Norris’s delight in his predicament; if the news reached Lisbon it would then reach London, and he had seen enough in his eighteen years’ service to know that bold tactics that were not successful were never admitted as bold, only reckless. He called the guard, outside, and asked in Spanish if he might be allowed writing paper and a pen.

  It was an hour before his door reopened. Hervey was surprised to see the physician returned.

  ‘Monsieur, the authorities have consented to the return of your necessaries.’ The physician placed a valise on the table. ‘And to writing paper and ink.’

  The guard placed these on the table, and three steel pens.

  Hervey searched at once for his Prayer Book; the other items could be easily replaced.

  ‘And I have brought you this,’ continued the physician, giving him a small but new-looking volume. ‘I should not apologize for bringing you Holy Scripture, monsieur, but I wish there had been something more in English in our library.’

  Hervey was unsure as to which library the physician referred, but he was grateful enough. He wondered, indeed, if the ‘authorities’, Spanish or Portuguese, found it expedient to use this medical man as go-between. ‘Monsieur, you are very kind. The letter you brought me is from Elvas. I would write by way of acknowledgement and assurance that I am well treated. I believe the authorities could have no objection?’

  The physician shook his head slightly, sufficient to indicate his own agreement with Hervey’s proposition. ‘I will represent that to the authorities, monsieur.’

  Hervey took careful note of the physician’s choice of words. The anonymity of ‘authorities’, repeated, was too convenient to be mere chance; there was evasion here. The physician had told him that the Spaniards had made much on his arrival at Badajoz of not being able to take him at his word: he might be a mercenary, an adventurer, a renegade – and of any nationality. There were formalities to go through to establish his credentials. That, at least, was what they had claimed.

  The physician appeared to hesitate. ‘Monsieur, I have it on good authority . . . that is to say, I believe that if you were to give your parole, the authorities would conduct you without delay to England.’

  Hervey did not doubt it. He had expected as much, though perhaps not quite so soon. If he gave his parole he would be taken to Madrid, likely as not, and there given over to the British ambassador, who would arrange for his transport northwards into France, to the consul in Bordeaux, perhaps, and thence to England by claret boat – a long journey, with plenty of opportunity to contemplate his situation, an age in which to imagine the opprobrium awaiting him at the Horse Guards, the Duke of York incandescent. And there would be no opportunity to redeem himself in arms against the Miguelistas if a British army were sent to Portugal, for those would be the terms of parole. No, it was insupportable.

  ‘You are very good, monsieur,’ he replied, and with a trace of a smile. ‘But I am not at liberty to give my parole.’

  The physician looked pained. Hervey could not imagine why.

  ‘Then I wish you good day, monsieur,’ said the physician, with (thought Hervey) the merest touch of sadness. ‘When you have written your letter please give it to the guard, unsealed. He will know what to do.’

  Hervey bowed. ‘I am obliged, monsieur.’

  The physician hesitated again. ‘Monsieur, my name is Sanchez.’

  Hervey bowed again. ‘Doctor Sanchez.’

  How might a man escape Badajoz? Not by force of arms, reckoned Hervey. When he contemplated that night in April 1812, three whole divisions of the most determined men hurling themselves against the walls of this place, any such thought was absurd. It had taken three sieges and the lives of more men than the army could rightly spare to break in to Badajoz. The Duke of Wellington had not had Joshua’s spies, and in the end it had all been done in the old way – with brave men’s breasts. There was nothing new under the sun: a soldier appropriated the methods of his forebears, adapting them as circumstances and means changed, but if science and ruses failed, there was but one way left to fight! Joshua had been lucky. His spies had almost been discovered. Only Rahab the prostitute had saved them, hiding them in her house. And what luck there had been in that, for her house was upon the town wall, and she dwelt upon the wall. Could there be such a woman in Badajoz, to let him down by a cord through the window, as Rahab had let down Joshua’s men? Even if there was, how would he find her? Joshua’s spies had entered the city before the siege, to speak with whom they pleased. How might he meet with anyone but his jailers?

  No; it was for Dom Mateo to find a Rahab. All he, Hervey, could do was communicate with him, so that when the time came they would be of the same mind. He might of course take every opportunity for exercise, for then he could spy things out, but he must have a care not to shackle himself thereby, perhaps unwitting, by any local parole, as Joshua had with the men of Gibeon. He must judge it finely. One thing was certain, however: he must escape this place. There could be no question of exchange, or even of unconditional release if it meant the Spaniards handing him over formally to the authorities in Lisbon. That way lay humiliation, and military oblivion thereafter. How long did he have? Days rather than weeks, for sure. Did Dom Mateo comprehend this too?

  He opened his Prayer Book, turning routinely to the psalms appointed for the twentieth day, as had been his practice all those years ago. Psalm 102, Domine exaudi: it spoke his supplication perfectly, if only he had the faith. Hear my prayer, O Lord: and let my crying come unto thee. Hide not thy face from me in the time of my trouble: incline thine ear unto me when I call; O hear me, and that right soon . . .

&n
bsp; How aptly did God speak to him! What sound principle it had been all those years ago to read the psalms, day by day, as long as darkness or the enemy permitted. It had been a sustaining regimen, not mere duty, and even now, after all the late years of indifference, it could sustain (and, he imagined ruefully, it could keep him from trouble in the first place).

  But Domine exaudi did not comfort: it spoke of his days ‘consumed away like smoke’, his heart ‘smitten down and withered like grass: so that I forget to eat my bread’; he was ‘become like a pelican in the wilderness: and like an owl that is in the desert’; his ‘enemies revile me all the day long’. The words rebuked him as if from his father’s pulpit: out of the heaven did the Lord behold the earth;That he might hear the mournings of such as are in captivity . . .

  He closed the book, very decidedly. In Badajoz there could be no mournings, only the resolve to escape – and quickly.

  CHAPTER THREE

  PLANTING THE STANDARD

  Belem, Lisbon, 23 December 1826

  Three days later, the frigate Pyramus, thirty-six guns, dropped anchor in the Tagus, as so many of His Britannic Majesty’s ships had during the late war with Bonaparte, and hands began swinging out her boats. Smoke from the royal salute hung about her gun deck still as Lieutenant-General Sir William Henry Clinton MP, commanding the expeditionary force to His Most Faithful Majesty’s Kingdom of Portugal, descended from the quarterdeck to the gangway on the port side and thence to the barge which would take him and his staff ashore.

  Sir William, lately deputy to the Duke of Wellington at the Board of Ordnance, had no very great experience of campaigning, but his reputation was for a sure and steady hand. He picked his way carefully into the barge. The swell was not heavy, but Sir William was fifty-seven years old, and although but the same age as the duke, evidently by his appearance he was not nearly so active. He settled in the stern, where a bosun’s mate placed a blanket and a light paulin over his legs, pulled down his cocked hat, turned up the collar of his greatcoat, and set his gaze at the shore. It was his first sight of the city, although he had served briefly in Spain under the duke. As a young captain he had seen a little action (and much discomfort) in Flanders under the Duke of York, and as a colonel he had been aide-de-camp at the Horse Guards when the Duke had been appointed commander-in-chief. He had briefly been governor of Madeira, and as a major-general had seen a little service in Sicily, but since the end of the French war his time had been taken up with parliamentary duties. However, Lord Bathurst, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, was of a mind that these credentials were apt enough for an intervention essentially diplomatic in its nature. Besides, he would have good brigadiers.

  The barge made easy progress to the shore three cables distant, past the Moorish Torre de Belem, which old Peninsular hands had told Sir William to observe closely, with its statue of Our Lady of Safe Homecoming to bless the nation’s navigators and merchantmen. Sir William gave it a passing look, but his thoughts were more engaged by the audience he would have with the regent, and the warning that Lord Bathurst had given him just before he set out. Sir William liked clarity in affairs of all kind, and he was feeling the want of it now, for Bathurst had revealed strong disquiet over the purpose of the Foreign Secretary, Mr Canning, in sending five thousand men to Portugal. He reached inside his cloak and took out the tattered copy of Hansard, which had been his constant reference during the passage. He had been in the House of Commons when Mr Canning had read the message from His Majesty, and he had thought he had understood it plainly – before Lord Bathurst had sown the present doubt in his mind: His Majesty, said Hansard, had acquainted both the House of Lords and Commons that he had received an earnest application from the princess regent of Portugal, claiming, in virtue of the ancient obligations of alliance and amity subsisting between His Majesty and the Crown of Portugal, His Majesty’s aid against hostile aggression from Spain.

  Sir William well recollected the acclamation in the Commons. There was a sentiment for Portugal stronger than for most places. Doubtless the fortified wine of Porto had much to do with it, but the sentiment went beyond commerce and taste. Portugal had been as good an ally as any in the late war with Bonaparte, and superior to most. Her soldiers had fought as well as His Majesty’s own (and in truth, on occasion, better). There was a fellow feeling for this country, and he was most conscious of it.

  He took up Hansard again. It recounted that His Majesty had informed both houses of his exertions, in conjunction with the King of France, to prevent aggression, and of the repeated assurances of His Catholic Majesty neither to commit, nor to allow to be committed, any aggression against Portugal from Spanish territory. But His Britannic Majesty had learned that, not-withstanding these assurances, hostile inroads into the territory of Portugal had been concerted in Spain, and executed under the eyes of the Spanish authorities by Portuguese regiments which had deserted into Spain, and which the Spanish government had repeatedly and solemnly engaged to disarm and disperse . . .

  The Tagus spray was giving Hansard a salty soaking, but still Sir William sought to assure himself of the King’s mind, and the government’s intentions. He read that His Majesty had left no effort unexhausted to awaken the Spanish government to the dangerous consequences of this apparent connivance, and that His Majesty made his communication to parliament with the full and entire confidence that both houses would afford him support in maintaining the faith of treaties, and in securing against foreign hostility the safety and independence of the kingdom of Portugal, ‘the oldest ally of Great Britain’.

  They had been fine words when Sir William had first heard them, and they were fine, yet, on the page. As a dutiful member of the House of Commons, and deputy to a member of the cabinet (which rank the appointment of Master General of the Ordnance carried), Sir William had voted without hesitation in favour of the King’s proposal, as had the overwhelming majority of members, laying aside for the time being any party prejudice for or against Pedro or Miguel. And the Foreign Secretary’s own eloquence in the matter had been so affecting: Mr Canning might not enjoy the trust or affection of many, even in his own party, but his words had been received uncommonly well that day (and faithfully recorded in Hansard).If into that war this country shall be compelled to enter, we shall enter into it, with a sincere and anxious desire to mitigate rather than exasperate, and to mingle only in the conflict of arms, not in the more fatal conflict of opinions. But I much fear that this country (however earnestly she may endeavour to avoid it) could not, in such case, avoid seeing ranked under her banners all the restless and dissatisfied of any nation with which she might come in conflict. It is the contemplation of this new power, in any future war, which excites my most anxious apprehension. It is one thing to have a giant’s strength, but it would be another to use it like a giant. The consequence of letting loose the passions at present chained and confined, would be to produce a scene of desolation which no man can contemplate without horror.

  Sir William pondered deeply on those words – ‘a sincere and anxious desire to mitigate rather than exasperate, and to mingle only in the conflict of arms, not in the more fatal conflict of opinions’. That had been the import, as he understood it, of the King’s message. Yet Mr Canning seemed to believe that a force of intervention could not avoid the enmity of faction. Sir William read over the lines once more. Who, precisely, were ‘the restless and dissatisfied of any nation’? His orders from the Horse Guards were one thing, but what the Foreign Secretary had in mind might be quite another. Sir William shook his head. But at least, it seemed to him, Canning had nailed his colours to the mast in his grandisonant final flourish: if it came to ‘a scene of desolation’, and he, General Clinton, was hauled before parliament to give account for the wages of ambiguity, he would at least be able to point to the magnificent purpose of the intervention:Let us fly to the aid of Portugal, by whomsoever attacked; because it is our duty to do so: and let us cease our interference where that duty ends. We go to Portuga
l, not to rule, not to dictate, not to prescribe constitutions – but to defend and to preserve the independence of an ally. We go to plant the standard of England on the well-known heights of Lisbon. Where that standard is planted, foreign dominion shall not come.

  What, indeed, could be plainer than that? Sir William recalled, too, the Duke of Wellington’s words to him, that ‘the expedition ought to bring the Spanish king to a sense of what is due to himself and his own dignity’. Sir William smiled at the characteristic terms in which the duke had added, ‘our business is to drive out the enemy, Clinton; nothing else!’

  If only Lord Bathurst had not said that Portuguese deserters combined with disaffected citizens were the likelier enemy than the Spanish! What should be his position, therefore, if Portuguese forces – the Miguelites – invaded from across the border with Spain, but without Spanish troops?

  It was, Sir William considered, a deuced tricky state of affairs into which he was come. It did his temper, and his dyspepsy, no good whatever. He only hoped that people here in Lisbon saw things clearly.

  ‘Damn it, gentlemen! Can you not keep the water from inside the barge?’ he barked suddenly, as more Tagus spray fell in his lap.

  The midshipman touched his hat to his choleric passenger. They were, thank God, done with pulling, anyway. ‘Boat your oars!’

  He brought the barge smoothly alongside the landing, stood up and held out a hand. Lieutenant-General Sir William Clinton, the advance party in person of England’s first expedition to the Continent in a dozen years, was about to make his own firstfooting on Portuguese soil.

  Ill tempered though he may be, the symbolism of the outstretched hand was not lost on Sir William. There was one thing of which he was certain – that a British army in the Peninsula must never be out of contact with the Royal Navy. That would be his first and settled principle. Then, if there came that ‘scene of desolation which no man can contemplate without horror’, he would at least be able to evacuate his force with honour. He wanted nothing of the retreat to Corunna.