Rumours Of War

‘Sit down again.’ Hervey did likewise.

‘What’s it mean then exactly, sir?’

‘Companion of the Bath? Well, it says that someone has taken notice.’

‘But tha knows they ’ad. Lord whatsisname wanted thee to be ’is colonel.’

‘Then I suppose it means, for one thing, that he does not bear me any grudge for declining the honour.’

‘Is there a medal wi’ it?’

‘Yes. Do you remember the ribbon Mr Somervile wore round his neck?’

‘’E ’ad one an’ all?’

‘You knew that. From the mutiny in Madras.’

‘And that’s it then? Tha gets a bit o’ ribbon an’ letters after thi name?’

Hervey smiled. ‘I suppose so.’ Then he nodded slowly. ‘But it gives one, I should say, a certain . . . authority.’

Johnson took another good draw. ‘But tha’s a major anyway.’

Hervey emptied his glass and then refilled it, and Johnson’s. ‘Look at it this way. Colonel Norris is about to send a despatch to London which will not serve at all. I intend, now, to send a despatch of my own, via Lord John Howard – you remember? The letters C.B. at the bottom are bound to lend it more weight.’ He raised a hand. ‘Do not even begin to ask why. That is how it is. And if His Majesty is so gracious as to appoint me to this honour then I shall use it to its utmost. I’m damned if I want just a piece of ribbon, no matter how pretty it is!’

‘Sounds only right, sir.’ Johnson stood up. ‘That ’arness: I’d better do it.’

Hervey put down his glass. He would drive to Kat’s house, and there he could write his submission untroubled; if he stayed in his own quarters there was every likelihood that Colonel Norris might sense an intrigue. He was certainly not going to ask leave to make his submission. What was the use? He was done with empty courtesies, especially those which stood in the way of best expediting the King’s business.

Kat received him warmly, as if he were the soldier returned from a long campaign. It had been all of two weeks.

But Hervey was not at first the passionate soldier returned from campaign. He embraced Kat vigorously enough, but he had wanted to speak of his sojourn and his subsequent frustration. She heard him attentively, understanding the generality of his complaints if not the detail.

‘And do you know what?’ he concluded, taking another glass of champagne from her as he circled her drawing room, railing against the Horse Guards for their patronage. ‘Just before I came here, Griffith and Mostyn, the engineers, came to my quarters and told me of their calculations. They estimate that to put the lines at Torres Vedras into proper repair would be the work of six months, at an outlay of five hundred thousand and more. Where do you suppose such a sum might come from? Will the Portuguese have it? It must be certain that our parliament would never vote such a figure. So Norris’s design is apt to come to naught on a simple matter of supply.’

Kat looked troubled. ‘Sit down, Matthew, my love,’ she said, with considerable tenderness.

It was the first time she had used the endearment, which to Hervey’s mind had ever been reserved to Henrietta. He recoiled, if not visibly, but resigned himself to the unhealing wound. He obliged her and sat in an armchair.

Kat stood beside him and began stroking his brow. ‘Is it necessary that you drive yourself so, Matthew? Will any listen to you?’ She stopped suddenly and clutched his head to her breasts. ‘Oh, my love, do not think I mean to decry your position and judgement. It is just that . . . the way things go in London, you know? And you have so very much to lose.’

My love again. It troubled him. But her hand was soothing, her words beguiling. How easy, how tempting it was to give way to the tide of events, to enjoy his comforts, relish his honours. But now of all times it would be folly. He would never advance steadily and without effort, as many with money and easy conscience, but his star was rising – the Gazette said as much. It shone just bright enough for some in position to notice, and he must therefore make sure it was neither extinguished nor eclipsed.

He laughed. ‘And it seems I have more to lose than I was aware of. I did not say, Kat: the King has made me a companion of his bath!’

Kat was all joy. ‘Matthew! Indeed! What laurels to you! I am very, very happy! What thinks Colonel Norris?’

‘He has said nothing.’

‘And Mr Forbes?’

‘I don’t imagine he will know.’

‘Then I shall tell him without delay.’

Hervey frowned. ‘Oh Kat, I see no occasion for that.’

‘And why not indeed? Think of it thus: if Mr Forbes would learn of your alternative design, he might thereby be more disposed to approving it.’

He had thought of the same himself, determined on using every means to secure his design, but hearing the raw truth was strangely unpalatable. Already he despised the artfulness. He told himself he would despise it less the more he practised it – as if that were any comfort. Except that in its way, it was. He had not relished the actual use of the sword to begin with, or the pistol, but it had become easier with every affair. The days of being too fastidious were past.

‘You are, of course, right. Forbes will be writing his own advice to Mr Canning.’

Kat bent and kissed him.

Hervey rose to pull her to him and respond in proper measure. ‘And,’ he added, breaking from their embrace momentarily, and just far enough to look into her eyes, ‘Isabella Delgado said her father would counsel the same.’

Kat’s hands loosened slightly on his shoulders, and she looked at him puzzled. ‘Isabella Delgado? When did you see her? I thought you were straight come from your quarters?’

Hervey saw the sudden ditch ahead – how deep or wide he did not rightly know, but it was too late to check his pace. ‘In Elvas.’

Kat’s hands slipped from his shoulders to his arms, and she leaned back. ‘Isabella Delgado was in Elvas with you?’

‘Not with me, Kat. With her uncle, the bishop.’

‘But you evidently saw a great deal of her.’

Their embrace was now loose.

‘She was of inestimable value, to begin with at least, as interpretress. I should not have been able to do half of what I had to without someone fluent in both tongues.’

Kat bit her bottom lip and lowered her eyes, then she loosed her hands from his arms altogether and turned away.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A COLD COMING

Near Sahagun, the early hours, 21 December 1808

‘Campfires, if I’m not very much mistaken,’ said Lieutenant Martyn, squinting in the face of freezing wind and driving snow. ‘At last!’

Hervey could barely hear him. The snow deadened every step but the wind blew like the smithy’s bellows. At first he had ridden upright and square, as he had always done on Salisbury Plain in foul weather, but as the hours passed and the blizzard worsened, he had begun to lean forward like the others, taking one step at a time – or