Rumours Of War

Your arriving here has so astounded me that I pen you these brief words to say that I shall come by this evening, when duties permit. I dine with Colonel Norris and the others of my party at the legation, and I expect that it may be late before I might absent myself.Forgive this hasty note, but I must even now be about my business here.Your own,Matthew Hervey.

He read it over. It seemed a cool response. But he had not the time to rewrite it; and even if he had he was not sure he could do better. He placed it in an envelope, wrote the address hurriedly, then sealed it.

Johnson returned with a swarthy child dressed in a dirty yellow suit. ‘’E’s a postboy.’

‘Indeed.’ Hervey thought for a moment, decided to trust to Johnson’s against his own judgement, and gave the boy the envelope and a silver escudo. ‘Rua dos Condes?’

The boy checked his oral instructions with those on the envelope. He nodded. ‘Sim, senhor.’ Then he darted from the room.

Hervey sighed. He supposed the boy would be strolling by the time he reached the street. He doubted he knew where the Rua dos Condes was, let alone had any intention of going there. How was it that so unpromising a lad could even read?

‘’E runs for t’hotel, sir. I shouldn’t worry.’

Hervey knew there was little he could do now but trust; he was due at the legation in half an hour, and Colonel Norris wanted to see him first.

‘An acquaintance of mine from London, General Greville’s wife. She is here in Lisbon and invites me to dine.’

‘So tha won’t be gooin to t’embassy?’

‘Indeed I shall be, yes. And that is what I have said in my reply.’ Hervey heard his own trepidation in the words.

But Johnson saw no occasion to press for enlightenment. ‘Anything else then, sir?’

‘Thank you, Johnson, no. I believe you may go now.’

‘Right. So I’ll see thee back, and I’ll ’ave young Wainwright ’ere an’ all.’

Hervey hesitated. ‘No, on second thoughts – if there are any orders I’ll send for you. Otherwise reveille at seven, as usual.’

When Johnson had gone, Hervey sat down wearily at his desk. He could not imagine what Kat thought she was doing coming to Lisbon like this. They had had it out a fortnight ago: he would not be many months here, he would write to her, she would go to stay with a sister. That was what they had said. Was this just another diverting opportunity, too good to miss, like Brussels before Waterloo? There was nothing like the prospect of a fight to heat the blood of a man in regimentals – Kat’s very words. Was that why she had followed him? He shook his head. How was he supposed to keep a liaison secret here? Perhaps he just ought not see her – after tonight (he would have to go to her tonight)? In all probability he would be leaving for the frontier tomorrow or the day after. Yes, that was probably his best course. He would warn her tonight that he would be leaving for the frontier at once, and that he would be unlikely to return until the party re-embarked for England, their work done. And meanwhile, he had better get himself into his Oxford mixtures, and to Colonel Norris’s quarters.

The colonel’s sitting room was cold, although there was a fire. Hervey kept his cloak about him, as did the others, and took out his pocketbook.

‘Well, gentlemen,’ began Norris, packing tobacco into his pipe and eyeing them portentously. ‘We have a historic task before us.’ He paused again and looked at each of them in turn.

Cope, the Rifles major, glanced at Hervey and mouthed silently ‘Bobadil’, the nickname Norris had acquired their first evening at sea.

Norris was all bombast, they reckoned, and jealous bombast at that. No one was permitted an opinion but that it was his. Hervey studied him closely: not a military-looking man, for all his regimentals. He was shorter by a hand than any of them, which only made the bombast seem worse, and he had pronounced dewlaps; Hervey found himself counting them.

‘Yes indeed, a historic task. The very safety of the nation rests in our hands. The weight of responsibility is great, gentlemen. I feel it bearing upon me with full force.’

Hervey could scarce believe it. And this, he supposed, from one of the duke’s own men. Bobadil; it was very apt indeed.

‘I say “historic” for so it shall prove, I feel sure. But also because we follow a historic precedent in what we shall soon undertake. One, I feel sure also, that the duke himself would esteem were he here.’

Norris’s rhetoric discomfited all of them alike, but still no one spoke.

‘Gentlemen, you will be acquainted no doubt – if not at first hand then surely by learning – with the celebrated lines of Torres Vedras.’

He searched each face before him for an answer, but in vain (for the statement hardly required one).

‘Just so. Well, gentlemen, the object of our reconnaissance to these shores is those very lines. If there be an invasion of the country, whether by Miguelistas or Spanish regulars, at Torres Vedras it shall be halted, just as the duke himself halted the French!’

That much sounded prudent, thought Hervey, but it could not be the entire story.

‘The day after tomorrow, therefore, we set out to make a survey of the lines to assess their repair and service. Thereafter we shall make an estimate of the size of the force that will be required to garrison the lines in the event that His Majesty’s ministers are decided on intervening.’

Hervey was now distinctly puzzled. The information concerning the fortifications would be available, would it not, and with greater accuracy than they could hope to achieve, in the Negocios Estrangeiros e Guerra? ‘May I ask, Colonel, when we shall make any forward reconnaissance?’

‘Forward? Forward where, Major Hervey?’

‘I mean at the frontier, Colonel. We are to suppose, are we not, that the Portuguese loyal to the regent will contest any crossing?’

Colonel Norris looked surprised. ‘If they do, and if they are successful, then all well and good. But if not, then the lines of Torres Vedras shall bar an advance on Lisbon. It is very straightforward, Hervey.’

Hervey chose to ignore the patronizing note, at least in his reply. ‘But might it not be prudent to render assistance to the Portuguese on the frontier too, Colonel? They might fight all the better with a few red coats among them.’

‘Or green ones,’ said Cope, the Rifles major.

Colonel Norris did not appear to care for either the assessment or the drollery. ‘Gentlemen, I fail to understand your purpose. We are not engaged in a game.’

Hervey bit his tongue. He reckoned he had been shot over a great many times more than had Colonel Norris.

Major Cope answered for him. ‘Might we not with advantage, Colonel, divide our effort? My skill, and Hervey’s too, I imagine, is that of the battle of manoeuvre, not of fortification and fieldworks. With yourself, and Griffith and Mostyn here, there should be ample expertise in surveying the lines at Torres Vedras. You could therefore send Hervey and me to the frontier.’

Colonel Norris’s brow furrowed. ‘Major Cope, I am surprised at you. It is one of the fundamental principles of war, is it not, that effort be not divided?’ He rummaged among the papers on his writing table until he found the one with the evidence he needed. ‘Let me quote to you the exact words the Duke of Wellington himself used when he made his submission to the cabinet soon after he landed here all those years ago. It still serves: “As the whole country is frontier it would only be possible to make the capital and its environs secure.” ’ He placed the paper down and looked at the major with a smile not unlike one of pity. ‘So you will see, sir, that I am immovable on this point.’

Colonel Norris’s notion of the concentration of effort was, indeed, curious, thought Hervey, but he saw no way of outflanking it at that moment – and no way, certainly, of reminding him that the duke had baited Massena well forward and brought him all unknowing and ill-prepared on to the lines, thus greatly magnifying their effect. No one could ever again be taken by surprise there. And what was more, the duke had laid waste to the country for fifty miles, so that there was not a bean to be had in the fields. The French had starved and sickened before Torres Vedras, and then they had simply gone away, like whipped dogs. Was that what Norris was contemplating? Even if