Rumours Of War

Bonaparte’s forces combined, it would be annihilated. And in Paget’s ears, as well as Moore’s, rang the words of Mr Canning: ‘The army is not merely a considerable part of the dispensable force of this country. It is in fact the British army. Another army it has not to send.’ There was nothing he, Paget or any of them could do to prevent the junction of Soult and Bonaparte, but he could prevent Soult from fixing Moore in place. And for as long as Moore could keep a march between himself and Soult he ought to be able to get his army to Corunna; the junction of Soult and Bonaparte would ultimately therefore be to no purpose.

He could not yet know it for certain, but in this deception Paget was already favoured by the affair at Sahagun, for Debelle had told Soult that a great number of cavalry had fallen upon him. It would therefore be, he trusted, more a matter of maintaining the illusion than creating it. Accordingly, he gave instructions for his regiments to mask the retirement of the rest of the army. He intended that not a yard of country should go unwatched, and that the videttes and patrols should act with the utmost belligerence: every prod was to be parried, every exploratory attack was to be met by a counter-charge. It was a risky stratagem. The commander of a force would not hazard his cavalry in such a way unless he had ample of them; it was a settled precept. Soult would likely as not calculate that Paget’s force was twice its actual size. Therein lay the simple ploy. But in any case, Paget wanted his commanders to take the offence; he did not intend that British cavalry slink out of Castile like a pack of whipped hounds.

Within the hour, Sir Edward Lankester had the officers and serjeants of A Troop gathered in the lean-to that served as his orderly room.

‘In other words, gentlemen, we pay a second time for the privilege of wearing fine uniforms,’ he concluded, after speculating on what might lie ahead. ‘It should be our object that not a single French sabre touch one of our friends in red before they are safely over the Esla. Thereafter they shall best be able to see to themselves.’

A better turn of phrase Lankester could scarcely have fashioned, appealing to every fine instinct, and to one or two lesser ones as well. Hervey himself was thoroughly fired with the spirit of the arme blanche, relishing the notion of protecting the redcoats, as a lion might protect its cubs. And he was determined to have early sport of it.

Once outside, he and Cornet Laming tossed a silver dollar to see who would take the first watch until midnight.

‘We are fortunate, are we not, Laming, that we shall take the southern road,’ he said, as he repocketed the coin. ‘We’re bound to have a go with some French dragoons.’

‘And see Boney,’ said Laming, smiling.

Hervey raised his sword arm. ‘Death to the French!’

Laming raised his. ‘And we shall keep our feet dry that way too, says Lankester, for there are bridges all the way, not fords.’

It was a pleasing notion. Their feet had been wet with rain or snowmelt for a week or more.

‘Nor did I ever learn to swim, Hervey.’

Hervey smiled. He could swim well enough. He had learned in the mill pool in Horningsham, and he had swum the Severn at Shrewsbury; but all the same he did not fancy he would manage more than a few strokes in an Esla in spate, boots and all. ‘We must hope our horses have the skill,’ he replied, looking a shade rueful.

Laming and he shook hands. They would have a long journey, ‘at the worst time of the year’, Colonel Reynell had said: ‘the ways deep, the weather sharp, the days short; the very dead of winter’.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

THE REVERSE

Elvas, 30 October 1826

Sir John Moore had at least been sure, those seventeen winters past, of who and where his enemy was. Unspeakable though retreat might be, he had reached the conclusion that there was no other course. Having made that decision he could direct everything thereafter with singular purpose and resolve. Hervey, on the other hand, knew little of the factors by which to determine his course. He could suggest only general dispositions, as indicated in the scheme he had submitted to Colonel Norris, and then trust to the depth of the defensive works at the frontier, and to the reserves. Except that Dom Mateo could scarcely muster a reserve. In this regard Hervey knew they must rely on the telegraph to Lisbon for their early relief. He thought it the very devil of a thing that while Lord Paget had been able to humbug so great a number of French (as he covered the retreat of Moore’s infantry from Sahagun) at Elvas now there was not the means to humbug a fraction of that number of rebels.

And then later that morning, the day after Hervey had arrived, even as Major Coa was putting into effect the measures they had decided on the night before, came particularly unwelcome news. The captain of the Corpo Telegrafico reported that his company were not mobilized, as Dom Mateo had presumed them to be. His command was depleted and unpractised, said the captain; there were neither the men, the means nor the skill to establish a signal line between Elvas and Torres Vedras. He had even heard that there were not the resources at Torres Vedras, either, to repeat a signal to Lisbon.

‘And we may suppose that it is the same on the other lines,’ said Dom Mateo, kicking the leg of his writing table. ‘We have all the appearance of an army, but evidently parts of it are an illusion.’

For all that their plans depended on it, Hervey could hardly express himself very surprised. The economies in both their countries after Waterloo had been considerable. And the captain of the Corpo Telegrafico said only what Hervey’s old friend Commodore Peto had about paying off the lieutenants and warrant officers on the old semaphore lines to Portsmouth and across Kent. In England as well as Portugal, when the threat of invasion receded, parliament was of a mind that they could return to the velocity of the horse in conveying intelligence and instructions.

‘However,’ continued Dom Mateo. ‘I am assured that the Conselho da Guerra is to remedy the defect at once.’

‘I am glad of it, Dom Mateo,’ said Hervey. The immediate danger they faced was one thing, but the design he had pressed on the charge and the Horse Guards was conditional on the operation of all the old lines. ‘But how long might that remedy be?’

‘I have already asked. The captain says that cadets from the academy at Peynas are being seconded to the corpo as we speak, and men from the Batalhao de Artifices too. It should take but a few weeks to have them ready. They are intelligent men, all.’

Hervey did not doubt it. He had a high regard for engineers and artificers, as long as they were directed to ends that served a good design (otherwise they had an obstinate capacity for blowing things up, as well he knew from Bhurtpore). ‘A few weeks, you say, General?’

‘Just so. With artificers and good cadets we shall have a telegraph into the Conselho da Guerra itself. So now we may turn our minds, I believe, to the employment of the cavalry.’

At this Dom Mateo looked more at ease, and Hervey imagined there to be encouraging news. ‘Last night we asked Major Coa to determine the number at your disposal.’

‘And he has done so. The Eighth Cavalry is mobilized.’

‘Excellent! And its strength?’

‘Two squadrons – two hundred and twenty sabres.’

Hervey marvelled at the matter-of-fact way in which Dom Mateo exposed their weakness. He had expected twice that number of regular sabres, at least, and perhaps as many from the militia. That was the trouble, he sighed: Portugal was not Spain; it did not breed enough remounts.

‘And who is to command them?’

‘I am.’

Hervey knew he should not have been surprised at this either. It took him a moment or two to marshal his words nevertheless. ‘Dom Mateo, two hundred sabres: it is not a worthy command for you.’