That was true enough, Septimus reflected, though too often it was the case that a bad colonel destroyed a regiment.
“Major Perceval to receive his brevet while waiting his purchase, sir?”
“That is the intention, Sir Septimus.”
“Good. He is a fine fighting soldier, sir. Honest and brave and dearly loved by the men for his habit of leading from in front. Not the world’s intellectual, one must say, but given a task, sir, he will do it – provided you have explained it clearly first!”
General Hill laughed, said he would not forget that.
“Now, Sir Septimus. You are to return to England, for your own protection. You have been foully slandered and your life might be unsafe in Spanish company; it is wiser to remove you from the scene, sir. Horse Guards will be informed of the exact circumstance and of Lord Wellington’s most earnest desire that you be properly employed and in some way publicly rewarded so that it may be known that you are in good odour with the Army. A convoy sails next week – there are at least two a month at this season – and you may take passage then, if you will. I would add that the cost of that passage is not yours to bear. Four weeks may see you in London, sir. I wish I could say the same – life in Spain can be tedious, sir!”
“I am quite sure that my lady will welcome my presence at home on half-pay for a year or two, sir. There are twins I have never seen who will benefit from having their father at home as well.”
“I could envy you there, Sir Septimus. I am another one of those old soldiers who has never wed, perhaps the only thing I share in common with General Picton!”
Septimus could not help laughing; two men less alike he could not imagine.
“Aye, well, Sir Septimus – war can make strange companions, you know, sir.”
“It can indeed, General! I have not expressed my thanks for your kindness, sir. It is far more comforting to be told these things face to face than to try to read between the lines of a set of orders.”
“So I thought, sir. Now then, time to relax with a cup of tea, I suspect – and without the presence of staff officers. Mr Stanley, go and order a tea tray, if you would be so good, and then disappear for an hour!”
The lieutenant left, came back very rapidly with a fresh teapot, suggesting that a kettle was kept on the boil for the general.
General Hill poured tea with every sign of pleasure and then unbuttoned his coat; he was now, he made it clear, off duty.
“Right, Sir Septimus! What actually happened? In confidence, except that I will likely give his Lordship a resume – all verbal - which he will not disclose.”
Hill listened, drew a breath of dismay at Septimus’ account of the atrocities visited upon the local people, whistled when he disclosed the discovery of the trap at the arsenal.
“We spoke to the Count’s entourage, and the two surviving told all they knew; I sent them away with an escort of guerrillas and saw them no more. The Count had been offered a dukedom, with the understanding that it would soon turn into a kingdom under French protection. I suspect the whole of Spain would have been carved up if once he had set a precedent. Was Mina to be offered an independent Navarre, what might he do, sir?”
General Hill shook his head uncertainly, said that he could not be sure but suspected Mina was a Basque before ever he was a Spaniard.
“There is something to be said for the destruction of Spain, of course. The colonies would become independent, though many might then fall to other countries of Europe, or to America itself. The rich Philippines would almost certainly attract the attention of the East India Company… But Bonaparte would be much strengthened by an end to his Spanish adventuring. It must be discouraged, I fear me. What of the Count, Sir Septimus? He had now shown himself a traitor to Spain and a false friend to the British.”
“That was why I hanged him, sir.”
“Oh! There is stark determination for you! Did you mark his grave? There are those who might wish to retrieve his body for a family tomb.”
“No time, sir, and besides, there was no Catholic priest to bury him. He would not have wanted heretic rites at his grave.”
“You left him hanging?”
“Unless the Quartermaster crept back to recover his rope, yes, sir.”
“I do not think that will go down well with the Spanish. He was a Grandee, you know.”
“If in doubt, deny it, sir. Blame it all on the French. They will be blaming all upon me, and my shoulders are broad enough, sir. The truth will soon be lost, sir, and then the onlooker may choose whichever seems most convenient. I will not be here, sir, after all.”
“A damned good thing, Sir Septimus. As I said, two convoys a month sail in the summer season, sir. I shall go to great lengths to ensure that you certainly have a passage on next week’s.”
“Why, thank you, sir. Again!”
“You are a rogue, Sir Septimus. I do wish you were to remain in Spain. But it is better for you that you do not. I must return to headquarters, Sir Septimus. I will wish you God speed, and very much hope that you will come under my command again, sir!”
It was all very well, Septimus thought, but he could not bear to drink tea every day; there was reason in all things.
“Cooper! We are to return to England on the convoy, next week.”
“Very good, sir. I shall arrange all. Do we know what ship, sir?”
“No, General Hill did not tell me.”
“I shall find out, sir. I had a drink or two with the Town Major’s man when we were here last time. He will know everything; a bottle of brandy and he will make all the arrangements himself.”
“Take five guineas and buy him a barrel, man! Good cabins on the best ship. Can you ask Mr Ryan to come to me?”
“I am ordered to England, on the next convoy, supposedly on Wednesday, Mr Ryan. I doubt that this will be convenient to you, sir.”
“Anything but, Sir Septimus!”
“What do you intend, Mr Ryan?”
“Well, get off me backside and get busy, first of all, sir. I had intended to draw breath for a few days, but that it is no longer the best of ideas. My lady has never seen a city before – very much a small town girl – and I had intended to show her the sights. She will have to do without, I fear. A ship to the States is the best answer, sir. There is a regular trade with New York and other ports, mainly carrying ration beef and barrels of flour for the army here, and no small amount of Navy biscuit, I am told. They return with barrels of wine, sometimes with cork, or so I believe. I poked my nose about the port when I arrived in Spain, in the north; I presume that all is the same here in Lisbon. There will be cabin space, I doubt not; it is merely a question of locating it.”
“Paying for it?”
“Can be dealt with, sir. El Campesino found a small convoy with a paymaster’s chest a few months since. To be quite precise, sir – he found the convoy but I came across the chest. While he was busying himself with frying the surviving Frogs the lady and myself transferred a number of gold ten-franc pieces into canvas sacks which have sat on our packhorse since. There should be a little nest-egg to set ourselves up in a farm in the States, sir.”
“Good! Might I suggest that you drop two of those coins into Cooper’s ever-open hand? He will know exactly who to talk to so as to discover any ship sailing in the next few days.”
“Where would you be without that man, sir?”
“Dead, I suspect, Mr Ryan. He has a claim on me, if I can but persuade him to make it.”
“I much doubt you ever will, sir. He is bound to you by ties of affection, sir. To you and your family, I should say – that was almost to make an implication I did not intend!”
Septimus laughed at Ryan’s confusion, assured him that he was in no way upset, and nor would Cooper be.
“Do you intend to go to the northern part of America or to the south, Mr Ryan?”
“Not to the slave-holding parts, sir. I am Irish and can have little love for those who hold others in bondage!”
&nb
sp; “I am English, of course, but what I have seen of Ireland allows me to understand your views, sir. There is a degree of ill-feeling between the United States and Britain at the moment, and I much fear that it may lead to a war, from all I heard in the Mess last night. Both sides are talking up a grievance, or so it seems. That being the case, might you be wiser to go to Canada rather than America?”
“Probably not, sir. I think I prefer to leave Britain behind. If we travel a distance inland, sir, then we should be able to avoid any conflict, for I think the battlegrounds must be on or close to the coast.”
“You may well be right, Mr Ryan. Good luck in your search.”
Septimus dined in the Mess that night and was buttonholed by Carruthers immediately afterwards. The young man was laughing as he spoke, but seemed in earnest nonetheless as he begged for another bout at the card table.
“If I must, Mr Carruthers, then so be it. I fear I am due for my comeuppance however – luck such as I experienced last night will rarely be repeated.”
To Septimus’ relief, and Carruthers’ pleasure, the cards favoured the younger man; he was not skilled enough to win any great sum, but he came out on top, crowing mightily to his friends.
Septimus attended the Opera on the following evening and dined at a hotel with senior officers on the next night, returned to the Mess only on the day before he was due to take ship.
Carruthers suggested a last game before Septimus left – so that he could show that his win was no fluke. It was a trivial matter, and Septimus really did not care if the young man took his scalp. They played a hard-fought rubber, Septimus scraping out the winner.
“Another, sir? A farewell, perhaps? One hundred on the rubber and ten pound points!”
It was obviously pre-arranged, a number of Carruthers’ cronies crowding around the table and cheering the challenge.
To refuse would have seemed churlish, and perhaps the actions of a man frightened to lose money. The whisper that Septimus was not truly a gentleman would have spread rapidly and people would very soon remember that his brother and father were merchants. He shrugged, it was all one to him.
They played, Septimus concentrating and calculating the odds, taking few chances, none of them in defending the minor hand, and came out a heavy winner.
“Eight hundred and ten pounds, I calculate, Sir Septimus! You outplayed me, sir, as well as having the better cards more than once! My note of hand will suffice, sir?”
“Of course, Mr Carruthers. You were unlucky, sir. As you said, I very definitely held the better cards!”
An hour later, somewhat the worse for wear, Carruthers faced up to Septimus, a cluster of subalterns behind him.
“Double or quits, Sir Septimus! One rubber, sir!”
“It is too late in the evening, Mr Carruthers. We are neither of us in condition to be playing our best.”
“Are you to suggest that I am drunk, sir?”
That line could lead to pistols at dawn, was definitely to be stopped.
“Not at all, Mr Carruthers! Let us sit to the table, sir. The waiter will bring us a fresh deck of cards, I doubt not.”
It was always wiser to play with an unopened deck when the stakes were high; new cards could not have been stacked by a cheat.
Septimus won the rubber, Carruthers being, if not drunk then certainly not wholly in command of himself. He wrote out his IOU and signed it with a shaky hand.
“Thank’ee, Mr Carruthers. A final memory of Lisbon.”
Septimus placed the vowel in his notecase and stood from the table. He had every intention of burning the document as soon as he reached his rooms – a colonel could not take so huge a sum from a drunken young lieutenant.
General Cookson-Waring came to his side.
“Heavy plunging, Sir Septimus?”
“Far too much so, general. The boy is drunk. I shall destroy the vowel as soon as I am out of his sight. Would you be so good as to tell him so, tomorrow, after I have sailed when he can make no fuss about the business. You might wish to bend his ear as well, sir. Foolishness of that nature could make trouble for his whole family was I to present my demand to his father in England.”
Cookson-Waring shook his head dismissively.
“Not at all. Sir Septimus! His father is a fifty thousand pounds a year man! An East Indies merchant and a banker who owns coal mines and cotton mills and who knows what else! Small change to him, I fear. The boy knows nothing of money as a result. Goddam it! Here he comes again!”
Carruthers demanded another chance to make good; General Cookson-Waring nodded in the background – it was meaningless and there must be no possibility of a quarrel.
One thousand six hundred pounds doubled, and then again and finally topped twelve thousands before the boy at last fell down drunk.
“I must be aboard my ship before ten o’clock, general. That young fool will not wake before noon. Please to take these papers, sir, and tear them up in his presence and bring the business to an end.”
“With pleasure, Sir Septimus. He overstepped good manners towards the end, and I shall tell him so.”
The convoy sailed with the tide in the morning, Septimus leaning on the rail and making his farewell to Lisbon and its stench. His ship was the largest of the convoy, a Levanter come from the Eastern Mediterranean and meeting its escort in Lisbon. His cabin was made for the richest of merchants – spacious, in shipboard terms, and furnished comfortably; there was a shelf of books and a cabinet containing brandy, thus accounting for all possible tastes. Glancing at the books, Septimus was amused to discover that one half of them were pornography, illustrated with remarkably detailed drawings and oils; he had been told that many of the bookshops of London stocked nothing else. He was not entirely sure that he approved.
“More the sort of thing for that youngster Carruthers than for me, Cooper.”
Cooper took a glance at the book and shrugged.
“Seen better, sir. In Bombay, sir – you could get anything there.”
Two weeks of a good, but not too strong, westerly set the convoy into the Channel. They were to make port in the Pool of London, which meant passing by the Isle of Wight, almost within sight of home, with only a slight stretch of the imagination.
“Another couple of days, Cooper.”
“I bet it’s more than that, sir. They’ll keep you hanging about at Horse Guards. By the way, sir, you didn’t ask about the Count’s sword…”
“I forgot the bloody thing, Cooper. What of Mr Ryan, did you manage to help him out?”
“Same tide as us, sir. Did you see that big Yankee barquentine, sir? Bound for Baltimore, sir, and him and his missus aboard, sir.”
“Good. I liked the man.”
“Bit of a villain, sir, but not too bad a bloke. Could ‘ave made it back to his regiment, sir, but chose not to, for his colonel forever on his back, not liking Paddies at all.”
“Simpler to be on the records as dead, Cooper. Easier than selling out.”
“Maybe, sir. I never did ask straight out, but I think he might have got a bit annoyed with his colonel just before he left, sir.”
“How annoyed?”
“Pistol ball in his brains, sir?”
“Then he was certainly well-advised to die himself, officially, that is. I know nothing, Cooper.”
“Nor me, sir. Anyway, sir, the sword, the bloke said as how he could move it on straight away, like, knew of a young gentleman with more money than sense who’d just love it; he gave us a necklace, earrings, brooch and bracelet, sir – all in rubies, sir – star ruby central on the necklace, sir. No change from two thousand quid, sir, in London. But, thing was, he said that sword had a couple of stones on it that were big enough to have a name and he was going to whip them out of their settings and replace them with something a damned sight cheaper. He was going to make a bloody great profit on the deal, and hoped as how you would not be holding it against him, like.”
“I don’t quite understand, Cooper.”
&nbs
p; “Well, sir, now that we’re out of the regiment, I can talk a bit more; it was Mr Black what put me onto him, sort of a partner, so ‘e is. Knows where we live at Micheldever, sir, and I reckon as how it might be that every so often there’ll be pipe of port or a barrel or two of good brandy what turns up out of the blue, like, sir.”
“You do know I am a magistrate these days, Cooper?”
“I doubt he’ll hold it against you, sir.”
“I suppose it is none of my business, just how close Mr Black might be to the smugglers, Cooper?”
“That’s right, sir. None at all!”
“Ah, well, I am no more than a simple soldier man, Cooper.”
“Yes, sir, and what we don’t know, can’t grieve us, sir!”
They docked on a late morning tide, the day too much advanced to make Micheldever before nightfall. Septimus sent Cooper to take a room at the hotel while he reported to Horse Guards. There was a problem in that he had little idea of who he must report to – he presumed that Lord Wellington would have sent a despatch relating to him, and would have put it one of the naval cutters that made regular, fast runs to London, often halving the time of the convoys. He addressed the sergeant stood on duty at the doors – if the sergeant did not know the answer, then there was no solution to be discovered, and he would go home and wait to be called for.
“From Spain, sir. Lisbon convoy. Sir Septimus Pearce, lately of the Hampshires, that is, sir?”
Septimus confirmed the information.
“Very good, sir. Let me see, now… Best you should speak to the secretary to the Commander-in-Chief, sir, inasmuch that you are to be assured of the respect in which you are held, sir. I did not say that last, sir, but my younger brother is a sergeant in the New Foresters, sir. Very good regiment, sir, as are the Hampshires. I will send you in company of one of my messengers, sir, the building not being the easiest for finding your way.”
Septimus was much heartened; old sergeants knew everything and could be relied on to bow and scrape to those in favour and give the cold-shoulder to outsiders.
Spanish Tricks (Man of Conflict Series, Book 5) Page 15