by Deryn Lake
Our dearest love to you all,
Horatia.
‘Settle down to family life, eh?’ said Algy, guffawing a little.
Anne gave him a very reproving glance because Ida Anna was staring avidly. But inside she was overjoyed. Grandchildren were always welcome — and this one! In view of Horatia’s ordeal the little mite would be doubly loved when it finally chose to appear.
‘I can’t wait for the hostilities to cease,’ she said now, a small buzz of excitement blurring her voice. ‘Oh Algy, when do you think it will be?’
‘Within the next six months, my dear. I am certain of it.’
And he was right! As the family sat down to breakfast one summer morning in a room overlooking the gardens of Sutton Place, Algy rustled his copy of The Times, cleared his throat importantly, and said, ‘Listen to this.’
The Dowager Countess and her daughter looked at him expectantly and he went on, ‘Vienna, August 18, from Our Own Correspondent. It is a somewhat singular circumstance that I should, on the Emperor’s birthday (he is nineteen), have to inform you that the Hungarian war may be considered as nearly concluded.’
He could read no more. Anne had burst into tears and Ida Anna was about to follow suit.
‘There, there, my dear,’ he said, patting his wife’s hand and looking kind. ‘No need to cry. They’ll be safe now.’
‘Oh I hope so,’ she said, ‘I really do hope so. Algy, are you sure?’
‘Of course. Fighting will be confined to little pockets of resistance, that’s all. Just small skirmishes — and localized at that. There is nothing further to worry about.’
But despite her brave attempt at a smile there was still an anxious look in the Countess’s eye.
‘I will not be happy until they are both safely home,’ she said. ‘Not until the Master has set foot once more in Sutton Place and we can laugh at ancient curses.’
Algy put his head on one side.
‘The ancient curse?’ he said. ‘Yes, I must admit I had forgotten about that. Never mind, my dear. It can’t affect John Joseph now.’
*
‘But I thought this was a mere pocket of resistance,’ said Horatia, ‘not a vast citadel armed to the teeth.’
‘You’re exaggerating again,’ answered John Joseph, smiling. ‘It is a fortress, that is all. They can hold out for no longer than a week. Now that General Gorgey has surrendered to the Russians, Klapka will lay down his arms and bring his troops out with their hands in the air. You’ll see.’
They smiled at each other. As always when the name of General Klapka was mentioned they remembered Jackdaw’s brilliant impersonation of the Commander, aided by nothing more than a passing physical resemblance. Remembered too how he had forged the General’s signature on their papers and led them out into the darkness and away from the garrison of Carlsburg. It had been nothing short of a miracle that he had gone undetected. Yet he had appeared to enjoy himself, lighting cigar after cigar, and pulling a terrible face for the Commandant’s benefit when Horatia had insisted that she would scream non-stop if her husband and dog were not to accompany them.
How he had kissed her then. She could feel it even now, even after five months. His mouth so hard and demanding, his body taut with tension. It had been difficult to realize that it was all an act — which it must have been. Yet still the kisses had rained upon her mouth one after the other and she had gazed astonished at his expression of ecstasy. She had thought him quite the most brilliant actor she had ever seen as he held her against his pounding heartbeat and buried his lips in the sea of her hair.
He had murmured in her ear then too. Something that had sounded like ‘I have always loved you’, but could not, of course, have been so. But, regardless of what it really was, the Commandant had been amused by his superior’s behaviour and had seen them off with a wink.
‘What about the husband?’ he had said, with a jerk of his head in the direction of John Joseph.
‘Oh, I’m sure we shall find a job for him,’ Jackdaw had answered with a knowing laugh.
And that had been that. They had escaped captivity where dozens had failed, rescued by the daring of the Captain’s boyhood friend.
He had left them at the border, heading off towards Russian lines in search, so he said, of the Czarevitch himself. They had watched his black horse plunging off into the night aware that now they were to find their way back to the Austrian force single-handed. But their freedom had lasted hours only. At dawn the next day they had been picked up once more by Hungarian troops and within a few days were back in Carlsburg.
But this time English diplomatic channels had opened and it was only a week before Mr Colquhoun — the Consul in Bucharest — had arrived to take Horatia away.
‘But what about my husband, Mr Colquhoun? We don’t want to be separated.’
The Consul had adjusted his monocle and cleared his throat.
‘Lady Horatia, there is nothing I can do. Though he is a British subject he is also a member of the Austrian forces. I have been instructed by the Foreign Office to lead you — and you alone — to freedom.’
John Joseph had stood up. ‘Horatia, you must go. Mr Colquhoun has his orders. Take Lulie and wait for me in Vienna. The Austrian troops are so near — that’s right, isn’t it, Mr Colquhoun? — that Carlsburg will fall to them any day. I should be with you in a month. Now don’t argue.’
Mr Colquhoun bowed. He was the perfect English diplomat — about forty, going grey and with an air that most would describe as distinguished.
Now he said, ‘Captain Webbe Weston is correct, my Lady. Carlsburg is right in the line of the Austrian advance. Your separation should only be brief. Now I will withdraw for a minute so that you may make your farewells.’
John Joseph and Horatia had said nothing when he had gone — exchanging one kiss which spoke more than anything they could ever have put into words. Then she turned away, Lulie under her arm, and went through the cell door without looking back. The idyll was over. They could never be quite so close again.
Eight weeks later he had walked through the door of their married quarters in the capital, very thin and haggard, but smiling with joy to see her. They had one night together before John Joseph by command — and Horatia by choice — had gone to rejoin the regiment. The Hungarians were on the point of defeat and every man was needed to drive home the victory thrust. Within hours they were heading for the fortress of Comorn, Lulie left behind to be cared for in Vienna.
And now the great citadel lay before them, straddling the banks of the Danube in all its impenetrable might. A catch of familiarity came to John Joseph’s throat. Was this the place he had seen so often in that strange and terrible dream?
‘Are you all right?’ Horatia’s voice interrupted his thoughts.
‘Yes, why?’
‘You seem a little shaken. Is it the size of the place?’
‘Frankly, yes. I had expected nothing like this.’
They stared in silence to where the fortress — or rather the various parts that went to make it up — shone in the August sunshine. It was a brilliant construction, spanning as it did the entire river. On the right bank stood the Sandberg — a smaller fort protected by ten blockhouses. These had been put up in such a way that they protected the whole of the complex and, furthermore, must be taken successively. Behind the Sandberg lay the Danube fortification, bearing bomb-proof casements and space for two thousand men. These two armouries — known as the Palatinal works and stretching 18,000 feet — must fall to the Emperor’s troops before the inner or actual fortress, which stood on the left bank, could even be approached.
‘It’s impossible,’ said Horatia — and then went silent for fear of a rebuke as an Austrian Major rode past. She should not really have been at Comorn at all, only a few Army wives and camp followers being allowed near the mighty garrison before the final bitter blow that must be dealt to it in order to end the war.
‘I hope to God we don’t have to starve it out,’
came John Joseph’s answer. ‘Look at that island beyond. It’s one swarm of mosquitoes. If we are to stay here any time we will all be down with sickness and you, young woman, will be sent straight back to Vienna.’
‘And if there is fighting?’
‘There is no chance of that at the moment. It will need seventy-five thousand men to storm the place.’
‘Then I shall stay as long as you will let me.’
He took her hand and kissed it. He felt so much love that tears sprang into his eyes.
‘Horatia,’ he said, ‘if Comorn should finish me, I want you to stay a friend of Jackdaw’s. He is a remarkable man, as you well know, and could help you more than anybody else.’
She was silent, thinking about what he had just said, the words spinning in her mind like tops but not really making any sense.
‘I don’t want you to speak of it,’ she said eventually. ‘Nothing can happen to you. I won’t let it.’
He smiled a little sadly.
‘I think there is a saying, “What will be, will be.” You are a soldier’s wife and must face facts. If I die, Horatia, Sutton Place is willed to you until you remarry. When that happens it will pass to Uncle Thomas Monington but I have settled on you a thousand pounds a year for life. That should leave you comfortable enough to make the match of your choice.’
‘Stop it,’ she said, ‘stop it, stop it, stop it.’ The hot tears rushed down her cheeks and fell, splashing on to his outstretched hand. ‘You are never to speak of it again. I can’t bear it.’
‘Very well,’ he answered. ‘But, whatever the outcome of Comorn, remember that I love you and will until my dying moment.’
‘Which I pray is after mine,’ was all she would answer as she walked her horse away from his and on towards the huge encampment that stretched along the banks of the Danube as far as the eye could see.
*
By the light of the full August moon Cloverella and Jay danced in a fairy ring, moving in a spiral, in to the centre and out again. The name of the pattern was ‘Troy Town’ and its origins were ancient — the shape of the dance supposing to represent the maze which resembled the walls of Troy. While they danced they sang, loudly and clearly, worshipping nature and the old magic in their special way.
But, for once, their usually high spirits flagged fast and it was with a sigh that Cloverella finally sat down, offering her twelve-year-old son a pull at both a stone bottle of wine, which she had brought with her, and a clay pipe which she had placed in her pocket.
Yet after a few moments’ puffing Jay broke the silence, saying in a voice squeaking with the changes in his body from boyhood to manhood, ‘Is something going to happen? Are you dancing Troy Town to see into mysteries?’
His mother sighed once more.
‘Yes I am. All is not well here, Jay. The curse is awakening, my dear.’
He looked stricken. ‘I thought so.’ His voice went down an octave and he sounded momentarily full grown.
‘Is it to strike the Master?’
‘I don’t know — perhaps. Would you be sad if it did?’
‘Of course I would.’ He was a child again, protesting and indignant. ‘How could you ask me that?’
‘No offence, no offence,’ said Cloverella, puffing her pipe hard. ‘I just wondered how close you felt to him.’
‘Why, is he my father then?’
She smiled but said nothing, and the child went on, ‘Or is it Major Wardlaw?’
Cloverella laughed, her white teeth gleaming in her nut-brown face. ‘Do you really want to know?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘Then come here.’
And with that she leant across and started to whisper into her son’s grimy little ear.
*
‘... to crown the horrors of this war a pestilence was raging in the camps with such virulence that Prince Paskiewitsch states ...’
Mr Hicks’s voice — reading from The Times newspaper — died away.
‘Yes?’ said Anne.
He looked at her, his eyes like saucers behind his pince-nez.
‘... that five thousand men of the Russian Army had been attacked by cholera in three days.’
‘Well, thank God it is the Russian and not the Austrian,’ she said after a short pause.
Unspoken thoughts hung in the air between them. Thoughts that the Russians and the Austrians had joined forces against Hungary and that camp sites were shared and epidemics were no respecters of nationality.
‘It is here too,’ said Algy, after a while. ‘The Times reports six hundred and eighty-six dead to date in the British Isles.’
‘If only we knew where Horatia — and dear John Joseph, of course — are. There has been no word since that one letter.’
Algy took his pince-nez off and rubbed the top of his nose.
‘I expect we will hear something soon,’ he said.
And to that Anne could make no answer.
*
September — and the time for all to be gathered in. Everywhere harvest festival; curling loaves, crispy apples, sheaves of corn and bright-eyed choristers. Voices raised up and up from spire and weather vane, thanking the Lord for providing the richness of the land. And on the banks of the Danube voices raised up and up from tent and canvas, asking the Lord how He could give so much suffering.
Because in that ridiculous last-ditch stand embodied by the fortress of Comorn, nobody could possibly win. Nobody, that is, except some foolish men of war whose pride it was to stand before others and orate meaningless words about victory and patriotism, feeling their own thin blood stir with the clichés and worn-out phrases which meant so much to them and nothing at all to mankind.
For on both sides — Austrian and Hungarian alike — there was agony of spirit. Within the fortress General Klapka felt his health deteriorate, leaving him too tired to argue with the Hussars and the Honvods who would rather have seen the walls of Comorn fall in ruins around them than surrender to the Emperor’s Army. And beyond those walls, in the Austrian encampment, now swollen in number to 73,000 men — including a Russian corps of 18,000 — 10,000 soldiers lay stricken either with cholera or malignant fever. The Army of both factions was dying on its feet.
And in Vienna — to underline the futility of all this sacrifice — Prince Radetsky made his Victor Ludorum entry into a city transformed. For, in his honour — and he, poor man, knew little of the agony of Comorn — shawls, curtains, carpets, petticoats and every kind of flag imaginable had been hung from the balconies and windows of the houses beneath which he must pass on his triumphal journey to the Emperor’s palace, the Hofburg. With Strauss’s especially composed Radetsky March ringing in his ears, the Prince knelt before the Emperor and was crowned with a laurel wreath for bringing the Hungarian war to its close. It would appear that the last siege of all had been entirely forgotten.
But there — there on the banks of the great blue river that swept Europe’s heart — everyone in the Austrian camp waited breathlessly for Vienna’s instructions. Horatia had watched General Haynsu arrive and depart on the same day, mortified that the terms of surrender offered by those who occupied the fort were so hard.
And then, while the capital danced in celebration at the end of hostilities, the order came. It was to be a full siege. The Hungarians would be starved out if it took the Emperor’s Army a year. But all of them — from Franz Josef down to the newest and rawest recruit — had reckoned without one thing. From the pilgrim route that lay between India and Mecca an insidious enemy had crept unseen to attack the people of Europe. Cholera stalked at Comorn.
September! Death of the year. The sun like blood as it rose over the damson river; corn stubble bones in the afternoon; the sky at evening a crimson shroud. It was a time for endings, for farewells, for breaking hearts.
He knew, of course. The Master of Sutton Place knew for sure that the wheel was slowing, that the circle was almost complete; felt with such agony of soul that his days with Horatia were drawing to a cl
ose. He would have given anything in the world, when he finally understood his destiny, to escape it.
But he could not and he did what he thought best, knowing that time was slipping away from them both. He gave his love to Horatia with such an open heart, with such generosity of his evolved and kindly spirit, that he wrapped her in a shawl of happiness. She walked amongst the sick and the dying, assisting the Army surgeons, almost light-heartedly. It was not that she was shallow, or did not care, it was simply that she knew herself to be cherished and protected by the strongest force in the world. And then, quite suddenly and most cruelly, it was taken from her.
John Joseph grew sick one afternoon and within three hours could not move from his bed. Horatia ran the length of the camp to fetch the nearest surgeon — too wild-eyed to cry — but when the doctor came back with her she sobbed for a moment or two.
‘It’s cholera,’ he said briefly. ‘Don’t give your husband water, it will dilute the body salts even further.’
‘But he’s begging for it.’
‘Then just a sip. No more. You must be cruel to be kind.’
‘Oh God help me!’
‘Perhaps He will. Start praying.’ Harsh short words hiding a caring heart grown tired.
‘Thank you. May I send for you if there is any change?’
‘Of course. Keep him warm. It is all you can do.’
After he had gone Horatia sat down beside the bed and gazed with great tenderness at the man with whose portrait she had fallen in love, remembering John Joseph at the front of it now, staring into the distance; in the background, dwarfed but omnipresent, Sutton Place.
And looking into her husband’s face, purplish and wrinkled with fever, and watching helpless as he endured the agonizing cramps, she realized that the poor man had never had a chance. That he had been heir to a curse which had brought destruction, in one form or another, to all connected with it.
Already Horatia felt isolated, alone, at the bedrock of her existence. Outside the tent the noise of mortar shot, where the cannon pounded at the impenetrable walls of the fortress, reminded her vaguely that she sat in the midst of a vast Army. But to her there was nothing in the world but herself and the dying man who lay beside her. Regardless of all infection laws she lifted him up into her arms.