A Close Run Thing

now grasped his chance: ‘Alors, messieurs: je ne suis pas Anglais. Je suis l’agent de l’empereur.’

The lieutenant looked anguished. ‘C’est pas possible—’

But Hervey would not let him finish, instead piling on his doubts. He reached into a pocket (the escorts gestured with their pistols) and took out the de Chantonnay ring. ‘See this: it is the seal of the de Chantonnays — my seal. No Frenchman can fail to recognize it!’

The lieutenant rode up closer and peered at it. ‘Do you not have papers of authorization, monsieur?’ he asked sceptically.

‘What? To be found by the English or the Prussians! Do you take me for a fool?’ rasped Hervey in his most imperious French. ‘I have papers well enough, but you will find them only with the emperor’s staff. Now, if you please, I have business to be about.’

The lieutenant shifted uneasily. ‘What business is this, monsieur?’

‘I am not about to disclose the emperor’s business to a lieutenant!’ gasped Hervey, ‘even to a lieutenant of chasseurs!’

‘Then, I am afraid, monsieur, that you must accompany us so that we may verify your identity,’ said the lieutenant.

Hervey was now fired by the deception. ‘Imbecile!’ he shouted. ‘What in the name of France do you think we are about this day? You have seen my seal, have you not? You recognize it surely?’

‘Yes, of course, monsieur, but—’

‘Then, let me put to you this for your consideration, which only those in the emperor’s confidence must know. The Prussians — they are expected hourly upon this flank, are they not? Mais Prussiens, monsieur? Jamais! They are Grouchy’s men, no? Voila Grouchy! n’est-ce pas?’

The lieutenant was at a loss … and then profoundly relieved. ‘Oui, c’est ca; voila Grouchy! Truly, monsieur, that is so. A thousand pardons for delaying you: I was only doing my duty, you understand. May I provide an escort for you?’

‘Indeed you may not!’ thundered Hervey. ‘You will fly from here this instant and leave me to dupe the Prussians. Away, at once!’

The thrill of so outrageous a bluff turned rapidly to cold dread as he pondered the consequences had he failed — shot out of hand as a spy. Sister Maria had said, ‘You could pass for a Frenchman,’ and he had. How he wished she might know of the providence of that ring. He pushed it deep into a pocket as Jessye extended her trot. The forest was cool, soothing — and silent still, the thunder of cannon fire to the south no more here than a rumble. He began to doze in the saddle again …

‘Halt!’ came the command, unseen.

He pulled up at once and looked around. He could see nothing.

‘Wer ist das? Wohin gehen Sie?’

But before he could make any reply there came another voice: ‘Nein, verflucht! Es ist ein Englander!’

He did not hesitate a second time. ‘Herr General!’ he called, the Prussian’s vast bulk unmistakable in any light.

Half a dozen mounted figures emerged from the trees. Two of the general’s cavalry escorts kept their pistols trained on him as he rode straight for Muffling and launched into his dispatch with a fluency that took them aback.

‘Teufel! Gefahrlicher als ich gedacht hatte!’ exclaimed the baron. ‘Much more dangerous than I had imagined. Come; we must make straight for Prince Blucher.’

Hervey sighed, relieved that Muffling had grasped the danger and was prepared to act. Indeed, he was first relieved that he took him at his word, for he had no written authority, nor was he an ADC. And, as they quickened on, the general’s eyes widened in astonishment when Hervey recounted how he had discovered the ruse. The general kept repeating his assurance, however, that all would now be well just as soon as they found Prince Blucher. Hervey believed him.

But his confidence faltered on first seeing Blucher’s men a half-hour later, for where he had been expecting to see a military machine, the legacy of Frederick the Great, he saw only … disorder (some would say chaos). Never — not even during the worst moments of the long retreat through the Astorgias to Corunna — had he come upon anything so disheartening. Was ‘rabble’ too extreme a word for this mass of soldiery, guns and waggons toiling through mud axle-deep? It was as if the entire army had become stragglers. Muffling, however, knew both his countrymen and his allies, and perceived well enough Hervey’s dismay. ‘It is true,’ he conceded, ‘we were evilly mauled yesterday at Genappe. But do not underestimate the hardiness of these men, Mr Hervey. “Alte Vorwarts” has given your Duke of Wellington his word, his sacred word, that he will come to his aid. You do not suppose that these men will be unworthy of it?’

This pledge of constancy, and of the spirit that animated the Prince, was heartening, but it seemed unlikely. Yet soon it proved true, for when they found Prince Blucher he was encouraging his weary infantry in person. ‘Kommt, meine Kinder, noch einmal!’ he exhorted them, slapping his thigh and waving his hand. His intent could be in no doubt, and his energy was at once imparted to the jaded foot-soldiers. When he saw his old friend, however, he turned his horse and rode up in a welter of earthy opinion. ‘Mein Gott, Muffling, es ist Scheisse, reine Scheisse!’

Hervey fought hard not to laugh. Field Marshal Blucher, the veteran hussar and fighter of the French: warm, emotional, with a soldier’s vocabulary — and reeking of onions and gin. What greater contrast with the duke could there have been? Blucher even apologized for smelling so rank (having dosed himself, he explained, after a fearsome fall at Genappe), and shook Hervey’s hand so vigorously that he thought his wrist must crack.

‘This officer bears extraordinary intelligence of a ruse by the French,’ said Muffling. ‘I consider that you should hear it before my own.’

The marshal listened to Hervey’s report in frowning silence and then turned to one of his ADCs, instructing him to hasten General von Ziethen’s corps to the duke’s flank.

‘And, sir,’ ventured Hervey in textbook German, animated by Blucher’s determination to foil this stratagem, ‘may I propose one additional order? May I suggest, sir, that General von Ziethen opens fire as soon as his men debouch from the forest, for although they will be half a league or more from the French the firing will signal hostile intent and should therefore confound Bonaparte’s ruse.’

‘Ja, ja, richtig; das ist eine exzellente Idee,’ replied the field marshal excitedly. ‘Vieles Schiessen!’ he shouted, slapping his sides as if about to take off after hounds. ‘Vieles Schiessen, Lutzow!’ he called after the ADC.

Hervey was as anxious to be away as the ADC (for, his business concluded, he wished to search for Serjeant Strange), but he saw that his progress would be quicker in the company of Baron Muffling. Yet Muffling showed no enthusiasm for an immediate return, Blucher and he withdrawing for a full quarter-hour to confer alone. He dismounted and fed Jessye some corn which a commissary was content to give him, and as he sat on a fallen tree holding her reins he began to study more closely the men who filed by. And what he saw began to encourage him; indeed, inspire him. These men — as a body — looked as if they had had a mauling, and yet they had with them all their personal equipment. What was more, it was as serviceable as he had seen — more serviceable even. And the faces of the musketeers of the Silesian Regiment trudging past, though tired-looking, had a fearsome aspect: Hervey thought he saw in them a positive lust to be at the throats of the enemy.

The cavalry carefully picking their way around the infantry were even more convincing. They, too, bore the signs of battle, but they carried themselves with the same grim determination. These hussars knew what they were about. How proudly the black-and-white shako-cockades bobbed with their horses’ action. And what horses!

‘Zey are fine, are zey not?’ said one of Muffling’s ADCs, who had come over to share his tree, handing him a silver flask.

‘Yes,’ said Hervey. He could not say other, for they were fine horses, in the finest condition — and this despite their exertions of the past week. ‘Trakheners?’

‘Ja, Trakhener. Do you know ze breed?’

‘No, I have heard much of them but I have never before seen one.’

‘You admire zem, ja?’

‘Very much. They are bigger, I think, on the whole than our troop horses — half a hand, I should say. Plenty of bone, and beautiful heads, too,’ he smiled, thinking how much Jessope would approve of them.