02 - Keane's Challenge (16 page)

Wellington raised an eyebrow and shook his head. ‘Did you, indeed? Captain Keane, I am only too aware of the unpopularity of my policy of a razed earth. That was always to be expected. But it is a necessary evil.’

‘Yes, sir, of course. I do understand. But coming so close as it does to your being seen to have abandoned the poor people in Ciudad. Ten thousand of them. It cannot surprise you that it has come to such an extent as this. This is more than isolated incidents, Your Grace. Surely we must alter our plan?’

Wellington turned on him. ‘Our plan? What do you mean, Captain Keane, coming in here and challenging my strategy? It is not your place, sir, to tell me how to run the war. This is how we shall do it.’

Keane knew that he had overstepped the mark. ‘I am sorry, sir. Please accept my apologies. It was not my intention to challenge you.’

Grant interjected. ‘Captain Keane is distressed, Your Grace. I don’t think he intended to be insubordinate. And in truth, he does have a point.’

‘I am aware of that, Grant. Some of what you say is true, Keane. I did not anticipate that destroying the crop would have such a widespread effect. I had thought that the people were behind us, that they would sacrifice anything to defeat the French. I have to admit that it has taken me by surprise.’

He began to pace the room. ‘There have been moments in the last few days when I even felt that the Portuguese alliance might be doomed. I begin to question our very presence here.’

Keane glanced at Grant. He had never seen Wellington in such low spirits. The major gave nothing away and the duke
continued. ‘I am out of favour at St James’s. In my own headquarters Major Cavanagh hovers like a buzzard over prey, awaiting the slightest slip. In Lisbon, the Portuguese royal family opposes me. Across the country the very peasants I am tasked to defend are killing my own men, and all the while Marshal Massena is advancing. Now he besieges Almeida. Should the fortress fall before our defences are complete, we are lost and everything with us.’

He turned to Grant. ‘He does know about the lines of defence?’

‘Yes, sir. Naturally. Captain Keane, in common with all your intelligencing officers, knows of their existence and their progress.’

‘Good. So it should be. But Keane, word is to go nowhere beyond this room. Not even to your men.’

Keane saw an opportunity. ‘Speaking of whom, sir, might I enquire as to the whereabouts of Lieutenant Morris?’

Wellington raised an eyebrow and looked at Grant. ‘Morris?’

‘The artilleryman, sir. Transferred to Keane’s company. Of late he was here at headquarters. The unpleasantness, sir.’

‘Of course, your man outing our spy. Dreadful business. Lucky thing that the traitor died in the end. Blew himself up apparently, here in Celorico. In his own house. Making a bomb. Isn’t that right, Grant?’

‘Yes, sir, that would seem to be the case.’

‘Where’s Morris now?’

‘Requested leave, sir. A few days in, Lisbon I believe. Had to see someone on an affair of his estate.’

‘Quite. That’s where you’ll find him, Keane. Lisbon. Not that you will be going there. I need you to remain with Don Sanchez. He’s more valuable to me than a thousand German hussars, poor devils. I need Sanchez, Keane, more than ever now, and it
is your task to ensure that he remains both loyal and anxious to assist.’

‘I have done my best, sir.’

‘Have you, by God? Well, you had best continue doing so. He is of a mind to assist us?’

‘Yes, sir. I believe so, even with the recent business of the hussars. He did, though, seem to express interest in recompense.’

‘He wants to be paid for his trouble?’

‘He is aware that certain other guerrilla leaders have benefited from a bounty.’

‘Doesn’t he understand, Keane, as you must surely do, that I have no money. It was your action with Marshal Soult’s baggage train enabled me to pay the army last year. The government at home votes me the £300,000 that I request for the maintenance of a Portuguese army trained and commanded by my officers under General Beresford. Apart from that my purse sits empty. From where exactly does Sanchez think I can pay him?’

‘I do not know, sir. But he is open to other forms of bribery. I myself gave up my father’s own gun to him to keep him onside.’

Wellington stared at him. ‘Did you, by God? That was a damned fine thing to do, Keane. Grant, make note. Have Captain Keane recompensed for his loss. Uh… whenever we are able. It was a good piece?’

‘The very finest, sir. I was loath to part with it. It was one of the only links with my father.’

Wellington stopped short at the mention of Keane’s father and looked at him for a moment. ‘Your father. Yes, of course. A good man, Keane. That was truly a hard choice to make.’

Keane stopped. Here was the duke admitting in so many words that he knew his father. Certainly that he knew who he was. It was as he had thought then. Wellington was the key to
his identity. It was vital that he should remain in favour with the general. For an instant Keane was tempted to ask there and then what he had meant. He had long supposed that Wellington might have known his father. Even entertained the possibility that they were related. But here at last was the hint of proof that the duke might hold the clue to his father’s identity. But of course, this was not the time to mention such a thing. Keane held his tongue.

Wellington, realizing the reaction his comment had brought, looked at him with a curious expression and Keane knew that one day he would have the answer to that question. But for now it would have to wait. ‘You are a most extraordinary man, Captain Keane. Most extraordinary. And most fortunate.’

Keane bit his lip. ‘May I ask, sir, what you intend to do with my prisoners? I should like to tell Leech – that is, my man who was gravely wounded by them – what their fate is to be.’

Wellington looked away out of the window at the town and said nothing. ‘Tell him, Grant.’

‘I’m sorry, Keane. We cannot try them. You must see that. Were we to do so, they would most certainly be hanged. And that would, I am sure, be the right decision. But God knows what such a move would do to our relations with the Portuguese.’

Keane spoke slowly, thinking of the sight of Heredia walking back from the fields, his clothes spattered with blood. ‘I have good reason to believe that my own Portuguese trooper killed two of their number. He did it to satisfy honour, sir. He of all men knows that this is not the way of his people. Their betters, their officers, will see that. They will not oppose a trial. Sir, I beg of you, will you not try these men? One of them, even? They killed three of the Germans and almost did for one of my own.’

Wellington looked away. ‘We cannot risk it, Keane. I am most
sorry. Perhaps I have gone too far. But it is the only way to beat the French – deny them all sustenance. The people must understand that. Time is now of greater importance than ever. We cannot delay, Keane. We cannot simply starve out Massena’s army. I can see that the people will not stand for it.

‘We need to meet him in battle in two months’ time, not before, as some would have it. Wait until just as the campaigning season reaches its end and then lure him in to a campaign he cannot win. I need to give the people a victory before they will believe in me again.’ He paced the floor for a while and said nothing as the other two men stood silent.

Then he turned. ‘When I meet Marshal Massena, I need to meet him in battle on my terms. It must be on my terms, Keane. I am relying upon you to ensure that will happen. Major Grant will give you a new amusement on your way out. Good luck with it.’

‘An amusement, sir?’

‘A thing which might amuse you, Keane, and that might also help us to win this war. Take my good wishes to Colonel Sanchez and you may tell him that he will have his money just as soon as I can get it. I am sure that I can rely upon you to assist, in any way in which you may be asked.’

This last comment struck Keane as curious, but he made nothing of it. In fact the entire interview had been somewhat odd, with mention of his father and Wellington’s obstinacy about the impossibility of sending the Portuguese villagers to trial.

‘Good day, Captain Keane. I trust that when we next meet you will be the bearer of better news.’

Keane saluted and went to leave the room, followed by Grant, who closed the door behind them. Once outside, both men
walked some distance away from the ADC who was hovering in attendance and a clerk who sat at a large ormolu desk.

Grant took Keane to one side. ‘That, I am guessing, was not entirely the meeting you had envisaged.’

‘Not entirely, sir. Although in truth I was dreading having to make my report.’

‘And I don’t blame you, my boy. It’s a tricky business, this, and we have to play it with great care. We may be here with the ostensible purpose of defending Portugal against the French, but both of us know, as well as the duke himself, that our real purpose is the interest of Great Britain.’

Keane nodded. ‘The duke spoke of an “amusement”, sir.’

‘His Grace’s idea of a joke, Keane. Here it is.’ He walked across to a wooden box, which Keane had noticed on entering earlier.

‘Sir?’

‘Well, open it up, man, go on.’

Cautiously, and thinking that the whole thing might be intended as a curious practical joke, Keane opened the lid of the box, which popped up with a click. Inside were a number of red leather-bound books. Grant walked across beside him, picked one out and closed the box.

‘What is it, sir?’

‘This, James, is a telegraph code book. Latest thing. We are introducing them into the army. To staff officers and the guides. Do you realize that, using the device with which that book corresponds, we will be able to communicate with troops in the front line within a matter of minutes? We have decided to set up a system of telegraph stations. It pains me to say so, but it is based on a system used by the French for some years with great success.

‘Of course, here in the Peninsula the enemy are unable to
use a similar system. It would leave isolated forts exposed to the guerrillas and would be untenable. We, on the other hand, having the friendship of the guerrillas, are at liberty to emulate Bonaparte.’

He chortled to himself at the prospect of using a system perfected by the French against them. ‘We have established three lines of communication, with their focal point at Lisbon.’

Perhaps, thought Keane, that might explain Morris’s business there. Grant went on. ‘The Portuguese engineers – and in fact, Keane, they’re not at all bad – under their general Folque managed it. We now have a line stretching from Almeida to Lisbon. Sixteen posts, each of which is visible from the next. They are roughly some twelve miles apart. Another line runs between Barquinha and Abrantes, but that is smaller, with only two posts, and the third is devoted to watching the maritime activity in the Tagus. And then of course we have more in construction, along the defensive lines of which the duke spoke.’

‘Yes, sir. I understand the secrecy.’

‘Some of the stations have a mast, just like that of a frigate, up which, by a series of ropes and pulleys, it is possible to hoist a number of metal balls. Most are simpler affairs with a single post and a system of numbers indicated by the position of a wooden flag. D’you see?’

Keane nodded.

‘Do you realize, you can pass a message to the post at Almeida, and the command, even in Lisbon, may read it within a matter of hours? Hours, Keane, not days. Imagine.’

Keane frowned. ‘But sir, what if the French should see the signals? They will know what we intend.’

‘Yes, but General Folque has devised a code and that is what
I now hold in my hand. A very simple system of numbers relating to commands and messages. He had it put down in a book. This is your copy.’

He handed Keane the small red leather-bound notebook.

‘A code, sir?’

‘Yes, a cipher which the French will be unable to read. Again, it’s something they have been perfecting for years, and here we are beating them with their own weapon. ‘And now I have something else for you, James. And I know that it will not please you. The duke has further orders for you.’

Keane looked at him. ‘Further orders?’

‘Orders that he asked me to relay to you.’

‘Tell me what they are, sir.’

‘Once you reach Don Sanchez, you are to proceed to Val de Mula, where you will find a unit of Portuguese infantry under the command of a Captain Foote, late of the 69th. With them will be a unit of the local militia, the Ordenanza. You are to take command of this force.’

‘To what end, sir? I have sufficient men, more than enough, in fact, for the purpose of intelligence gathering.’

Grant shook his head. ‘That’s just it, Keane. You are to use them to break up the local flour mills and prevent them falling into enemy hands.’

Keane stared at him. ‘I cannot believe it. Sir, this must be wrong. After what has just been said. Even by the duke himself. Are we now to destroy the flour mills? This will surely ruin the country, not just for the French but for generations of Portuguese. It cannot be right.’

‘Those are Wellington’s precise instructions, and you are the man to do it. I’m sorry.’

‘No, sir, I am sorry. I cannot do it.’

Grant grasped him by the arm. ‘You must, James, or face the consequences. To refuse such an order would ruin you.’

Keane thought again of Wellington’s comment about his father. He stared at the floor. ‘How many mills?’

‘All that you can find. He is set on it.’

‘This is not a job for a British officer. Why can the Portuguese army not do it?’

‘You are the man for the job, Keane. That is the duke’s perception. Using the Ordenanza to do the dirty work will at least soften the blow to relations with our allies.’

‘But under my command?’

‘The officers who command the Portuguese regulars cannot do it. It is a diplomatic compromise. And you must at the same time continue to ensure that Colonel Sanchez remains true to our cause. And of course you must ensure that the telegraph can operate fully. You understand?’

Keane nodded. He could see the logic now, and also that there was no way out. He laughed. ‘Well, sir, at least it will enlarge my command a little. I’ll make colonel yet, before the year is out.’