An Act Of Courage

Hervey returned the smile as he replaced his Tarleton, and saluted.

As he walked back to A Troop’s lines, the sun now low in the sky behind him, he gazed east. The men with bayonets had broken open the door to Spain (Lord George had said it). Now it would be a run to the French border. They might get a footing in France itself before the allies in the east could get across the Rhine. Might they even ride to Paris? He could not say how many miles that would be, but already they must have marched a thousand – more – since first they had come to the Peninsula with Sir John Moore. He knew full well, as Lord George had said, that some would call him a damned fool to turn down promotion – and in a regiment like the Royals. But how could he leave men with whom he had shared so much? Perhaps there would not be so much fighting with the bayonet now? But in that case there would be more work for the cavalry to do . . .

Hervey wondered what his troop-leader would say – Sir Edward and his ‘long point’. Perhaps, indeed, the point had not yet begun: perhaps they were only now going to bolt their fox, from his earth in Badajoz. Monsieur Reynard would then be running over country he knew well, and they would be hunting him with followers strung out all the way from Lisbon.

No matter which way he looked at it, Hervey was sure he had made the right decision. Three sieges it had cost the army to take this place, and now he could turn his back on it for ever and fix his gaze, albeit by his map still, on the Pyrenees.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

UNHAPPY RETURNS

Reeves’s Hotel, Rua do Prior, Lisbon, 8 January 1827

Private Johnson put more wood on the fire, and shook his head. ‘I bet it won’t be any colder there, that’s all I can say.’

Hervey took less consolation in this dubious proposition than his groom might suppose. ‘Thank you, Johnson. I think, however, the prospect of England is not a warming one.’

‘Well I’m fed up wi’ this place. Tha d’n’t know ’ho to trust.’

‘I beg your pardon, Johnson, but one knows very well whom to trust.’

Johnson frowned. ‘Tha knows what I mean, sir.’

Hervey sighed. ‘Yes, I know what you mean.’

‘Will tha be gooin’ to see Mrs Delgado again?’

‘Yes,’ Hervey replied, warily. ‘But not for a day or so, I would imagine.’

‘I like Mrs Delgado.’

‘Yes, Johnson, so you have never failed to inform me.’

He had not minced words with his groom for years. Indeed, Johnson was less a soldier-servant, more family, of sorts. Hervey knew well enough what were Johnson’s thoughts: they were simple, probably too simple. But what was there to stop him riding to Belem and asking for Isabella’s hand? It was what he desired, was it not? There would be vexations, on account of Isabella’s religion no doubt, but they could be overcome. There was no woman he admired more – save his sister. And Isabella excited in him as much passion as any he had felt in . . . well, it was better that he make no comparison in that regard. Did he love her? He believed he did. Why was he not certain? Because a part of him – the part that loved in the way he had once known – had died in the snowy wastes of America along with Henrietta.

But what of Isabella herself ? What could be her feelings for him? They had not spoken on any terms of intimacy; she had given no sign. He was long past any diffidence that would inhibit a proposal on these grounds, but how might he love a woman – take a woman as his wife – who did not at heart share his regard or passion?

Or was that the adolescent’s, the romantic’s, notion – the very thing he had resolved to be done with? If there had been one profit in his caging in Badajoz it was (he flattered himself) an understanding of his condition. That, and a resolution to put unsatisfactory matters to rights. He had hoped to be spared any public discipline, yet he knew in truth that atonement without penance was not possible. Especially was this true where Colonel Norris was concerned. Perhaps he ought not to be too dismissive of Norris’s tiresome caution. Men had died, after all, in the course of his own designing.

‘An’ I don’t see why there should be all this trouble either.’ Johnson sounded quite decided.

‘There was only ever a possibility of avoiding trouble, as you call it, if things remained in Lisbon. I was lost as soon as the Horse Guards learned of it, let alone the War Office.’

‘Will Corporal Wainwright get in trouble?’

Hervey shook his head at the thought of his covering corporal on the bridge: the courage was one thing, the presence of mind quite another. ‘I cannot think even Colonel Norris could see anything but honour in what Wainwright did. I’m determined he shall have some reward.’

‘Ah wish ah’d seen it. Why didn’t ’e just jump wi’out ’is ’orse, though?’

Hervey shook his head again. ‘He said he thought he would be a burden without her!’

Johnson nodded, perfectly understanding. ‘An’ ’e’s still only a young’n!’

‘Indeed, Johnson.’ He started searching again among the paraphernalia of uniform piled ready for packing. ‘Where is my button-stick?’

‘But that doctor were brave an’ all.’

Hervey looked up. ‘You know, Johnson, it was fifteen years ago, the business at Badajoz. I could never have imagined what long shadows it cast. I didn’t tell you the other two daughters died of fever before the war was ended, and that his wife took her own life not long after. He might have been a broken man – or, at least, a very bitter one. Yet I never met a kinder man.’

‘Will ’e be in trouble, d’ye think, sir?’

Hervey shrugged. ‘He cannot very well return to Spain, at least for a while. Mr Forbes at the legation is taking good care of him. They spoke of some employment in the Americas. I shall see him again before we leave, I hope.’ He threw up his hands in frustration. ‘Where is that button-stick?’

Johnson laid down the bellows. ‘Why don’t tha let me do that, sir. Sit down and ’ave thi coffee while it’s ’ot.’

Hervey sighed. He had no need of the button-stick anyway, except to occupy his mind. He sat in the armchair by the smoking fire and poured out some of the thick black brew which Johnson had perfected over many years of improvisation with the most unpromising of raw materials, and then picked up the letter again. ‘I must tell you frankly, Johnson: the Duke of York is greatly angered. Lord John Howard tells me all in this, here.’

Johnson took up the poker again, and scowled. ‘Ay. But t’Duke’d never ’ave known if Colonel Norris ’adn’t told ’im.’

‘Except that the Spanish ambassador has probably also protested.’

Johnson stopped poking the fire, and turned with a look of uncharacteristic anxiety. ‘Sir, tha doesn’t think tha’ll be—’

‘What?’

‘Well, I don’t know rightly – whatever it is as ’appens to an officer.’

‘Cashiered?’

‘Ay, sir.’

‘Quite possibly. I imagine the Horse Guards would not go to the trouble of ordering a general court martial otherwise.’

‘An’ tha’s not worried?’

Hervey half laughed. ‘Johnson, in truth I’m so dismayed by how we seem to arrange things in the army that I hardly care what happens. I believe I may say that I would not do the same again, for I see all too clearly how things have become, but in all honesty I cannot regret what I did, for it was all I had learned in these eighteen years a soldier.’

‘Ay, well said, Major ’Ervey. An’ Gen’ral Clinton says ’e’ll speak for thee, doesn’t ’e?’

‘Oh yes, have no fear, Johnson. There’ll be testimonials enough. But if the Duke of York is as angered as Lord