Rumours Of War

the pitch dark, alone with his worst imaginings, a sentry might become terrified and quit his post. But the advantage here lay with the riflemen: aimed shots against cavalry in a street, they unable to manoeuvre, and torches burning at the gate. It only took nerve. He prayed these men would hold to their posts.

Two dozen horses surged three abreast through the gate, like a tidal bore. Hervey tensed to give the order.

And then the great wave checked, as if another had met it head on – the vision of the narrow streets.

Hervey brought his pistol to the aim, trusting that a dozen rifles did likewise.

Isabella called out, ‘Dom Mateo!’

The cavalry captain, alarmed, swung his pistol round and peered into the street.

Isabella rushed past the atiradores. ‘Dom Mateo, it is I, Dona Isabella Delgado!’

The captain sprang from the saddle, dropped his reins and took up Isabella’s hand. ‘Dona Isabella! What in the name of Our Lady are you doing abroad at this hour? Your uncle?’

‘He is safe. We heard firing. We came with the guard.’

‘We? The guard?’

Hervey stepped from the doorway, pistol pushed into his belt, sword lowered.

The captain thrust out his sabre.

‘Dom Mateo, this is Major Hervey. He is an envoy of the Duke of Wellington.’

The captain braced, and threw his head back in disbelief. ‘Sim? You are English, sir; an envoy of Douro?’ Dom Mateo called the duke by his Portuguese title, the country having made him a marquess long before England had honoured him.

Hervey thought the appellation too exalted, but it was not the time to dispute. ‘Sim, senhor. Douro.’

The captain at once relaxed, and saluted. ‘I met the Duke of Wellington at one time,’ he said, his English barely accented. ‘But I knew Lord Beresford better. Captain Mateo de Braganca, at your service, sir.’ He held out his hand.

Hervey took it and returned the smile. ‘Your countrymen have just this minute driven a band of rebels from the city.’ He indicated the atiradores emerging from cover. ‘And very resolute they were.’

‘Then we have finished what you began, sir, for we ourselves have just put to flight a campful of them. The remainder of my troop is rounding up the stragglers as we speak. I warned as much, weeks ago, but those old fools would not listen.’ He nodded in the direction of the citadel.

Hervey’s ears pricked; here was a man who could think for himself. ‘We have just come from there, sir. I should say that there is some . . . consternation.’

‘I warned that these Miguelistas would try our strength, try to tempt some of the garrison to throw in with them. But no, all the Estado Mayor de Praca can think about is a general advance, with drums and banners, very obliging, just as the French did twenty years ago. We face deserters, traitors, not an honourable foe. I warned we should close the gates each night at dusk.’

‘I think the past hour or so has demonstrated that it would have been wise to do so, senhor. How was it that you came upon them?’

‘Hah! I have taken out my troop each night and ridden every track between Elvas and the frontier. What else was there to do, senhor?’

Hervey was impressed. He believed that this man might well have the measure of their predicament at Elvas. The rebels played a game of humbug this evening, of hoax and trickery. They appeared to do what the defenders expected they would do – feared they would do, no less. That their capability was but nothing took nerve to expose. He would mark this Captain Mateo de Braganca well.

He turned to Isabella. ‘Thank you, senhora. I am very greatly obliged to you.’

CHAPTER TWELVE

REPUTATIONS

Elvas, three days later, 19 October 1826

The more Dom Mateo spoke (and he spoke English well), the higher Hervey’s regard for him rose. As well as an inclination both to think and to act, Captain Mateo de Braganca looked a very soldierly man – no mere fidalgo dilettante, prizing nothing so much as the finery of regimentals. There was a way with uniform that spoke, to those who knew, of the wearer’s disposition, especially perhaps in the cavalry. Hervey had taken note at once of the canvas overalls, long in the leg, inners and ankle-band strengthened with kidskin suede, instead of the breeches and jacked boots that looked so good on parade; Dom Mateo’s cross-belt was fitted tight so as not to hang loose in a grappling, and his shako chinstrap was long enough to go under the chin rather than on it. These and other little details spoke of a serviceable regular rather than a showy ordenanca, just as it did with the Line and the yeomanry at home.

Dom Mateo’s uniform was so very like Hervey’s own, indeed, that the two might be taken for one at a distance. Except that the epaulettes were not the Frenchified affairs the Sixth were meant to wear; just a mailed shoulder with a simple fringe. Hervey reckoned that Marshal Beresford had chosen well all those years ago when he had reordered Portugal’s army, for a proud nation would have seen fit to change it otherwise. He could not help but think it a pity they would not welcome Beresford back to take command once more.

Hervey would have counted it a queer thing to judge a man by these presents – his uniform – alone, but he judged men quickly these days, confident that he could smell a bad one. And if he judged harshly then it were better that way: he was done for ever with trusting merely to a fellow’s rank when promotion was bought so easily. Or even when it was not bought, if the rank seemed ill used. Colonel Norris would have his loyalty for the time being, even if not his respect, for the first was due whereas the second was earned; but there were limits to personal loyalty when that risked what it might now. He had taken his own step down the road to rebellion in writing to Lord John Howard, but it was a step only, easily recovered if Norris would come to his senses quickly enough. There was urgent necessity, therefore, in coming to judgement on Dom Mateo, for he needed an officer of his own mind in order to acquire the necessary intelligence to support his design. Only an extensive reconnaissance, in person, could otherwise yield it, more extensive than he had time for. If he was going to persuade Colonel Norris and Mr Forbes of his design, he needed to know everything there was to know about that porous border, and the men who had crossed into Spain to return in ranked rebellion.

That Hervey’s regard for Dom Mateo could rise any higher was perhaps surprising, for in the forty-eight hours that had followed the scattering of the rebels in the plaza, they had ridden about the country in pursuit of the rebels’ compatriots, and Hervey had observed that Dom Mateo’s eye for ground, his energy and capability was every bit what the Sixth would call admirable. Dom Mateo was a humane man, too. When prisoners were taken they were disarmed but otherwise unmolested, save for a robust interrogation of those who might yield immediate intelligence. By the evening of the second day, confident the incursion was entirely defeated – the rebels captive, indeed, for the main part – Dom Mateo had posted standing patrols on the main approaches to the city, and then turned back for Elvas.

‘There were no Spaniards,’ he said again. ‘Every one a soldier of Portugal.’

At first Hervey had not known whether this was a cause for relief, albeit tinged with melancholy, or for disappointment. He decided to press him. ‘Did you expect otherwise?’

‘I did,’ replied Dom Mateo as they slowed to a walk down one of the steeper hills. ‘But then when it began to occur to me that this affair was . . . how did you say? – a demonstration, a show only, to see what the garrison would do, I thought it unlikely we would see any Spanish troops.’

‘The Spaniards would not think it their business to test the garrison?’