But he conceded too soon. The judge martial had a question. ‘Would that standing order be known to every officer?’
John Knight half shrugged his shoulders. ‘I cannot say. My business is the horses and the farriers.’
The judge martial turned to the man most likely to be able to answer.
‘No, Your Honour,’ said the adjutant. ‘There are general standing orders, which every officer and non-commissioned officer is required to be conversant with, and standing orders particular to certain duties or appointments. The order which the veterinary surgeon refers to would be a particular.’
‘Thank you, Mr Barrow,’ said the judge martial, in a manner suggesting that he ought not to have been the one to ask the question. He glanced at the president, and then back to Barrow again. ‘If Mr Beale-Browne has now finished, you may proceed.’
Barrow bowed. ‘Thank you, Mr Knight. Be pleased to dismiss.’
The court orderly brought the veterinary surgeon’s bicorn. Knight gathered up his sword, noisily, bowed rather than replacing the hat and saluting, and then left the court with the same single spur ringing with every other step.
The president raised his eyebrows in mild amusement. ‘And now, Mr Barrow?’
‘Mr President, at this time I would call Cornet Daly to give evidence.’
Hervey heard the urgent conferring again, but it went on longer, and sounded even more insistent.
‘Mr Beale-Browne!’ snapped the president.
Beale-Browne rose, hesitantly. ‘Mr President, sir, I . . . Mr Daly requests that he not be sworn.’
‘What?’ The president’s brow was deeply furrowed.
The judge martial looked up from his ledger. ‘Mr Beale-Browne, I have already explained: it has ever been the practice for evidence to be given upon oath in general courts martial.’
‘Yes, Your Honour, but Mr Daly maintains that it is unbecoming for an officer’s word to be doubted.’
The judge martial sighed, but with apparent sympathy. ‘Mr Beale-Browne, there are many who share that opinion, but the law is what it is, and it is that an officer give evidence upon oath.’
Beale-Browne leaned across the table to confer once more with Daly. Hervey was the only man in the court unable to see Daly’s head shaking furiously.
The president thumped the table with his fist. But it was Barrow who spoke. ‘Mr President, the prosecution is content not to call Cornet Daly, if the defending officer is of like mind.’
Lieutenant Beale-Browne looked like a drowning man who had been thrown a lifeline. ‘I should be content, sir.’
Barrow almost smiled. ‘Very well. Mr President and gentlemen, the prosecution’s case is concluded.’
The president looked bemused. ‘No further witnesses, Mr Barrow? No closing address?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Very well. Mr Beale-Browne, you are free to conclude.’
Beale-Browne rose again, wearily. ‘Mr President and gentlemen, er . . . Cornet Daly would wish to state that he believed he had every right and skill to attempt the burning out of the lampas, and that the death of his charger was the unfortunate but not uncommon outcome of any surgical intervention. He would state that he did not abuse Serjeant Treve, rather did he speak generally in the direct language of the horse lines, and that he had no intention of assaulting the serjeant at the time that he was struck by Cornet Hervey.’
The silence that followed was so pronounced that the judge martial looked up, curious, and then at the president. ‘Is that it, Mr Beale-Browne?’
‘I do believe it is, Your Honour.’
The judge martial laid down his pen. ‘Well, upon my word, I never came across anything so contrary. Mr President, I beg an adjournment in order to consult with myself on the matter before us.’
The president looked relieved. ‘Very well. The court stands adjourned. All shall remain within the environs.’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
LONG SHADOWS
Badajoz, 29 December 1826
It was so cold that a hoar-frost whitened the hangings of Hervey’s bedchamber. He lay still, listening for a sound that might tell him someone was come with news, welcome or otherwise. Since wine with Dr Sanchez the day before, hourly he had expected him to return with either a letter from Elvas telling him that his release was arranged, or else a summons to attend the tribunal. He had slept little, partly on account of the cold, but in larger part because his mind had wandered, back and forward, over a decade and more, from one misjudgement to another, every excess and indiscretion. They oppressed him, and yet none of them, in his imagining, compared with what was to come. How could it be that he had not learned his lesson until now, and that it should come to so low a point? He had learned the easy things well enough – the business of his profession, the drills and such like – but all else, when he contemplated it from the perspective of his present condition, appeared as nothing so much as failure.
He had lost a wife. It was ten years ago, but her memory – and the cause of her death – was ever with him, if routinely shut out. It had been his fault that Henrietta had died. Others might be blamed, but it had been his actions that had brought it about. He could not escape the fact (and he had never tried). He had a daughter, for whom he barely made provision beyond the material. How might he ever be father-hero to her when he did not see her from one year to the next? He slept with another man’s wife – or rather, he had slept (and how much did he wish she were by his side now?). When the tribunal here had finished with him, and the court martial in Whitehall, he might yet be named in the high court by a cuckolded husband. He would never be able to show his face to his family again. How could he even decently face the day?
He had been apprehensive that first time, the court martial at Badajoz, but not truly fearful, as now. It was not that his memory failed him (he was certain), rather that to be arraigned as a cornet was one thing, and quite another to be tried as brevet-major, Companion of the Most Honourable Military Order of the Bath. The irony in how things had turned out could not escape him. No doubt the one-time Cornet Daly would this day be hunting freely from his rackety estate in Galway, a careless, bibulous local hero, who regaled his fellow squireens with stories of slaying the French. Doubtless, too, he wrecked a good horse every season, and thought nothing of it beyond the cost of replacement. For what was an animal’s distress compared with his pleasure?
Why was it that some men had no sense of shame, no true sense, while others could be eternally burdened by it? Daly’s face when the court martial had pronounced without withdrawing – how could it not have registered abject shame? Hervey could see it still, the brazen scorn at the judge martial’s plain words: ‘A man of violent temper wielding a cautery is no little threat. I direct that the case against Cornet Hervey be dismissed.’ Then, when the court reassembled half an hour after withdrawing to consider its verdict on the remaining charges, Daly had marched in for all the world as if he were come to buy a horse at Tattersalls. And when the president read the words, ‘To Charge One, Guilty! To Charge Two, Guilty!’, there remained about him a defiant air, as if the proceedings, the regiment, the entire army, did not ultimately matter, for he, Frederick Keevil Daly of Kilconnell, would jaunt on. Even when the president announced punishment, ‘that he be dismissed the service’, his only thought – his question to the court, indeed – had been whether he might recover the value of his commission.
Now, at such a distance, and for an indulgent moment, Hervey might admire the man, for where had his own unbending principles landed him? But in truth he was resolved that if he escaped his present predicament, and if he escaped a court martial, and the attention of Sir Peregrine Greville, he would amend his ways. He would amend his ways so thoroughly, so root and branch, that there could be no possibility of finding himself in a contingency such as this again. Nor, indeed, would there be any neglect of the Commandments or the proper regulation of family.
It was a very remote prospect, however, his ‘deliverance�
�. That, he acknowledged. But the very thought of amendment lifted his spirits, as if, indeed, he were at some meeting of Methodists. He smiled, and thought of his sister. And then he chided himself again: had Elizabeth ever been wrong in her estimation of things? Had she ever had other than a right judgement? He had laughed at her for her evangelical principles, but they had never let her into deep water. Elizabeth would show him the way; he could trust in that.
He picked up his Prayer Book and opened it again at the collect for the previous day, for it had anticipated his new-found resolve: Mortify and kill all vices in us, and so strengthen us by thy grace, that by the innocency of our lives, and constancy of our faith, even unto death, we may glorify thy holy Name.
If only Joshua could be so apt! In these last, empty days, he had read Joshua closer than ever, almost as if the book might reveal his means of escape. A great soldier was Joshua, a cunning soldier, a soldier who overcame as much on his own side as on that of the enemy. But he knew no Rahab in Badajoz to let him down from the walls, no spies to find such a person within the city.
Dr Sanchez came at noon. He did so full of apology for his absence, for his failure to keep his promise of an early return. ‘It has been a difficult time, Major Hervey, difficult for me to explain. I beg you would forgive me and trust that it was not through choice that I did not come earlier.’
It did not matter to Hervey what had prevented the physician’s visiting, for whatever he had imagined were the possibilities in their recent intimacy, he had begun to conclude that Sanchez was not a man for turning: no honourable man could hazard his family by such a thing, and the physician was nothing if not an honourable man. ‘It has been an idle time, I confess, sir.’
Sanchez glanced at the open bible on the table. His face softened as he drew up a chair and sat down. ‘Joshua, Major Hervey?’
‘Joshua, yes. A great soldier.’
Sanchez unbuttoned his coat, despite the chill which the new-laid fire had not been able to dispel. ‘Do you believe, Major Hervey, that Joshua’s trumpets alone brought down the walls of Jericho?’
Hervey was intrigued. He thought to answer obliquely. ‘With God, all things are possible?’
‘Fie! Major Hervey! I had thought your study of Scripture would yield some more profound insight.’
Hervey smiled again. Was Sanchez merely making conversation? It was a curious attempt at diversion. ‘If you wish, señor, I will tell you what I understand may have happened at Jericho.’
‘Indeed I would hear it. It seems apt, here in Badajoz, don’t you think?’
Hervey was even more intrigued. Did Sanchez mean the aptness was historical or of the moment? ‘Apt? Possibly. Unlike the French, however – or, I imagine, your countrymen now – the Canaanites were terrified at the prospect of meeting the Israelites. They were resigned to their fate even. Does not Rahab the harlot say, “Our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more courage in any man”?’
‘Go on, Major Hervey.’
Hervey hesitated. The subject was closing to home. ‘The first object in laying a siege is to persuade the besieged that resistance is futile. The walls of Jericho would have meant little if the defenders had not had the courage to fight.’
Sanchez nodded, but with the appearance of sadness. ‘Would that the hearts of the defenders of Badajoz had melted!’
Hervey presumed he meant the night they had stormed the city. But he supposed it just possible that Sanchez referred in a roundabout way to the Miguelites. He would lead a little more. ‘Yes, would that they had. But Jericho was sacked, as you recall, and all but Rahab’s family put to the sword. It was an offering to God, was it not – a first fruit of the conquest of Canaan?’
‘Badajoz was an offering too – an offering to the basest instincts of war. Was not Badajoz the first fruit of the conquest of Spain?’
Hervey’s brow furrowed. ‘Hardly conquest, doctor!’
‘Forgive me. The campaign that rid Spain of Bonaparte – both of them – and for which my country is ever grateful for the assistance of yours, I assure you. But Badajoz paid the same price as Jericho.’
Hervey shook his head. ‘I recoil at the image of Jericho put to the sword, doctor, as I do at that of Badajoz. And yet the slaughter of the innocent here that night is somehow all of a piece with the slaughter in the breaches. You can have no idea how hard our men had to fight to overcome the walls. They did not tumble down, as at Jericho.’
Sanchez nodded again, gravely. ‘I know, perhaps, better than you imagine, my friend.’
Hervey stayed silent; he saw no cause for pressing him.
And then the physician brightened. ‘But you, I think – I know – did not use the edge of the sword against the people of Badajoz.’
‘Certainly not.’
‘Quite the contrary, indeed.’
Hervey looked at him intently.
‘See, my friend: I did not visit this morning, but it was not from neglect. I have the means of your escape. It will be quite easy, but we shall need help from Elvas.’
Hervey fought against his exhilaration. He needed to know how Sanchez had the means, and why. The declaration was so much more surprising for his having concluded that the physician was not his man. ‘Why do you do this?’
Sanchez held up a hand. ‘There may be opportunity to explain later. For the moment I would beg you to trust me, and attend carefully to what I say.’
Hervey inclined his head; what was there to lose?
‘Very well. Now understand this,’ began Sanchez, unusually imperative. ‘The castle is impregnable – in the minds, at least, of the authorities. The guards are few and confident of surety. Men may come and go quite freely as long as they have the password, which changes but weekly. The next change will be in two days’ time, when I shall learn of it. But, of course, I may not simply walk out of the castle with you. In any case, how then might you get to Elvas?’
Hervey was certain he would have no trouble getting to Elvas. ‘A third party must enter and overcome the guards on the way out?’
‘That is a possibility, although not without its difficulties. I had in mind your taking my place and leaving with a visiting party.’
Hervey looked doubtful. ‘I rather think it the stuff of books.’
Sanchez shook his head. ‘I see no reason why it should not obtain here, Major Hervey. I have observed the guards. They are, as I say, confident – complacent – in their surety. There is, after all, no threat to the fortress, and the officers do not intrude upon their duties greatly. No, I have seen the guards at work: they are content to count the numbers entering and leaving the citadel. Sometimes they do not even count.’
‘Forgive me, doctor. I did not wish to sound unthankful. As long as we have the means to fight our way past the guards if things go wrong . . . But how may we leave you here? Your fate would be an unhappy one!’
Sanchez held up his hands. ‘That is a detail of which we may speak in due course. The first thing we must do is communicate the password to Elvas. I am unable to do so, for reasons you may suppose. But you have free communications by letter, as we see. You have, I presume, a code?’
Hervey shook his head. ‘Matters did not progress to that.’
Sanchez looked disappointed. ‘Ah, I had imagined—’
‘Except . . .’ began Hervey, thoughtful. ‘There is a code . . . but I don’t have it. But if I ask Elvas to send me the code-book of the Corpo Telegráfico . . . do you imagine the authorities will let it pass?’
‘Ask for many books. That way there stands a chance it might not be noticed.’
Hervey took up a pen. There was paper still on the table from his half-hearted attempts to maintain his journal. He began writing, quickly, an everyday account of his time these past few days, nothing to raise a suspicion. Then he inserted the request for the code-book, trusting that the veiling did not obscure his meaning, other than to the censor:
But time weighs heavily upon me. Send me books to read, as many as y
ou may spare, for I am without any diversion. Send, if you can, Folque’s book, that I may learn more of the language while I am confined. And we may speak to each other of his ideas.
Hervey read him the letter, in French.
‘Admirable, admirable. It will arouse no suspicion whatsoever. And your general will understand?’
‘He will understand, I trust. We spoke of Folque enough.’
‘Who is he?’
‘A general of engineers. He planned the army’s signalling system, and its code. Wellington used it throughout the Peninsula.’
‘Very well. I will take your letter to the lieutenant-governor at once. If he has not heard of Folque either, Elvas should have it by the morning.’ Sanchez rose.
Hervey fixed him with a scrutinizing look, though far from hostile. ‘Why do you do this?’
The physician replaced his battered old tricorn, and put a hand to Hervey’s shoulder. ‘Badajoz, my friend. Because of Badajoz!’
It was no explanation at all: Hervey was uncomprehending still. Why would this man do this, risk his own life, indeed, when a British army had behaved so infamously in his own city? He shook his head.
‘That night, the night of the storming here: the shadows are yet long.’
‘But—’
‘Another day, Hervey; another day, perhaps.’ Then he lifted up the letter, waving it and smiling, hopefully.
CHAPTER TWENTY
FIRST FRUITS
Badajoz, midnight, 6 April 1812
Five years, Sir Edward Lankester had said it would take to eject the French from Spain. ‘The long point’, he had called it – ‘no bolting Reynard and running him fast to the kill’. Three of those years had passed, and here they were at Badajoz, barely a league beyond the border with Portugal, exactly where they had been three summers ago. ‘Believe me, Hervey, these French marshals will show us more foxery than you’d see in a dozen seasons in Leicestershire.’ On such a night as this, Sir Edward’s words seemed extraordinarily prophetic.
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