02 - Keane's Challenge (18 page)

Then one day, without warning, something had clicked inside the man’s restive mind and he had attacked one of his fellow young officers, name of Wright, simply for issuing him an order to clean his boots. Armstrong had gone for the lad with his bayonet and before the men could dragged him off had stuck him like a pig through the belly and the heart. He was hanged of course, in front of the battalion, and Keane had never forgotten it. He wondered now whether Heredia might have anything in common with Armstrong and he prayed that he did not. At least he was not a psalmist, or whatever the Catholic equivalent might be.

He would know soon enough, anyway. After the two men had had their bout. Then he would watch Heredia. He would deal with it day by day. It was the only way.

He called over to Gabriella. ‘How’s that stew going? I’m starving.’

She looked back at him and managed a smile. That was good, he thought. Perhaps he had managed to cross one of the boundaries
she had put up since the affair at the village. Silver turned to him. ‘Almost done, sir. Looking as good as it smells.’

‘Then get it dished up. All of you– you too, Heredia – get some stew. Archer, will Leech manage any?’

‘Yes, sir. I think he will now.’

‘Then let’s all eat. Will, break out that wine over there. This might be the best meal we all have for some time. Tomorrow we’ll be in the hills.’

Their return to Don Sanchez’s camp was not an easy journey. Keane spent much of the time observing Heredia, wondering whether he might at some point lose his self-control and attack Silver. He suspected that the man was still concerned that with Pritchard’s death he would never be cleared and Keane knew that in his world honour was of paramount importance. He had little to lose by killing a comrade, particularly one who had introduced such a woman as Gabriella into their camp.

In many ways it seemed to him that Pritchard was the author of all their misfortune. He had transformed Morris from charming old friend into a man he felt he hardly knew, full of secrecy and mistrust. His death had brought more doubts and left Heredia dissatisfied and reckless.

*

They found the camp much as they had left it. In their absence Sanchez had taken out a party looking for French transports and had found his prize: a large wooden chest packed with gold objects and precious stones, which had been looted in the course of Massena’s march south and was being taken back to the emperor in Paris. He sat with it before him on the ground
like some theatrical robber baron, the analogy made all the more telling by the fact that he had draped around his neck a long gold chain hung with a ruby which until recently had belonged to the Bishop of Salamanca.

He greeted Keane with a smile, but remained seated. ‘Welcome home, Captain Keane. How was Celorico?’

‘As I had expected, colonel.’

‘Lord Wellington is well? You saw him? And the prisoners? I trust that you found satisfaction. I had thought that you might wait for their trial.’

Keane showed no emotion. ‘They will not be tried.’

Sanchez looked surprised, but Keane thought it sham. ‘No? Have they been shot already, without a trial? How very un-British.’

‘No. They are to be set free.’

Sanchez smiled. ‘A wasted journey then for you, captain. Not at all what you had expected or had in mind. You must be frustrated.’

‘No, not entirely, although I prefer to see justice properly done. But no, it was not wasted. I had an interesting interview with the commander-in-chief.’

‘You are on good terms with Wellington?’

‘I like to think so. I am to take command of a company of the Ordenanza.’

Sanchez’s smile grew to a grin and then a laugh. ‘The Ordenanza. I don’t envy you. They are a rabble. That is indeed a thankless task. Why have you been given such a command? You have your own men and the hussars, and my cooperation is assured. Surely the Ordenanza do not need a man with your skills. They stand in line and get shot. If they stand at all.’

Keane was surprised by the compliment. ‘Apparently they need me. It is for a specific purpose.’

‘May I know what?’

Keane had not been looking forward to revealing the nature of his task to Sanchez, knowing the reaction it would cause. ‘I am to use them to break up the local flour mills. To prevent them falling into the hands of the French.’

Sanchez whistled and shook his head. ‘Captain, does Wellington not understand what he is doing here? Is he not content with destroying the crops, knowing what that has done? You took him the prisoners. You showed him. This will surely set the seal on your relations with the people.’

‘I am all too aware of that, colonel. But those are my orders. I am sure that the reason Wellington chooses to use Portuguese soldiers, in particular militia, to do this job, is because it will look less damaging.’

‘Yes, of course. Well, I don’t envy you. Where are the men now?’

‘At Val de Mula apparently, near the old fort. I have to take command of them immediately.’

Sanchez took off the gold chain and stood up, buckling on his sword belt. ‘It is most interesting, your way of soldiering. You are about to start destroying mills, while others in your army are building.’

‘Building?’

‘Yes, a wooden towers on a hill.’

He walked with Keane across the village square to a spot looking across the plains to the south-east. ‘Look. Over there on the road to Fort Concepcion. Do you see it?’

Keane looked and saw a wooden tower rising on top of the hill. Around it, figures were finishing their work.

‘It’s a new invention, colonel. A telegraph machine. It can send orders and messages across country by means of signals. The navy have been using something of the sort for some time.’

‘Fascinating. Will I see it in operation?’

‘Most certainly. I plan to test it at once. You are most welcome to watch.’

Keane left Ross in charge and told him to keep an eye on Heredia and Silver, and then with Sanchez, and accompanied by Archer and two of Sanchez’s men, rode across to the hill and up to the summit.

The telegraph station was a tower made from wood rising some twenty feet high at the top of the hill. It had only recently been constructed by the field engineers and still smelt of sweet, unseasoned timber. It was a simple structure, with a staircase leading to a platform at the top on which the telegraph machine had been installed.

As Grant had explained to him, it had a simple mechanism. On a single pole another shorter post had been attached by a screw enabling it to spin freely. A handle at the bottom of this second pole enabled the operator to move the arm through a full circle. At the top of the pole was attached a prominent square of wood, about two feet square and painted bright red, whose position dictated the number. Bottom left would mean 1, left 2, top left 3 and so on. Up to six. When the square was at the top it was simply ‘ready’.

Using this system hundreds of number combinations could be transmitted, each of them having a separate meaning, as dictated by Colonel Folque’s code book. It had a brilliant simplicity and, thought Keane, seemed infallible, though it all depended on the secrecy of the code book and that, he knew, he would have to guard with his life.

Keane pulled it from his pocket and thought of a message with which to test the apparatus.

Eventually he settled on a simple few lines. ‘Message to Almeida station. Good day. Can you read this message? Please reply. San Pedro station.’

He had decided that Archer, who, with his medical background, was the most intelligent and well-read member of his team, would make a good code master and operator, though it was vital to have a replacement should anything happen to him. They stood at the top of the little tower and looked across the plain to where another tower stood on another hill some ten miles distant, near Nava d’Aver. Along with the code book, Grant had provided him with a small map of the locations of the signal towers. Keane drew the eyeglass from his valise and opened it before putting it to his eye.

‘I can see figures there. Are we ready, do you think, Archer?’

‘I think so, sir. As we’ll ever be.’

So Keane found the appropriate numbers in the code book and read them out, and Archer repeated them and carefully moved the arm to the appropriate position.

‘391, 276, 400, 661, 325, 391, 243, 281.’

Twenty-four separate movements were required, but it didn’t take Archer long to master the system. He finished transmitting and moved the arm back to the ‘ready’ position.

‘How long do you suppose it will take for them to reply, sir?

‘If the next station has seen it, then we should, I imagine, receive a response from them. But we want a reply from Almeida. That’s two stations away. It might take a few hours.’

Sanchez, who had been watching silently, said, ‘It’s extraordinary. For hundreds of years these hills have stood here and it has taken generations days to move across them. Now they
are being used to make messages travel faster than any man possibly can. Fascinating.’

Again Keane lifted the telescope to his eye and looked at the distant hill station. For a few minutes nothing happened and he wondered if the garrison, four men from soldiers from the Portuguese military telegraph corps, had seen the message. But then the arm moved up. Three separate movements. Separate numbers in groups of three. He spoke them aloud and Archer transcribed.

‘391, 276, 400, 391, 461.’

Archer searched the code book: ‘Message to San Pedro station. Good day. Message received.’

‘It works, sir. What a system.’

Sanchez spoke again. ‘Well done, captain, that was most impressive. Now we can tell Wellington where the French are in just hours. An amazing feat.’

Keane nodded. ‘Yes, isn’t it? Let’s see what Almeida tells us. In the meantime I have to find my new command.’

He handed Archer the telescope. ‘Stay here and keep watch, and here, take my glass. I’ll keep the code book with me.’

Keane rode with Sanchez back to the village and then, taking Heredia and Martin with him, set off in the direction of the town of Val de Mula.

The countryside below them was alive with British soldiers, from small scouting parties of light cavalry and riflemen to an entire battalion on the march. He recognized it from a distance as the 43rd, from Craufurd’s division, and realized that they were falling back to regroup at Fort Concepcion, a frontier fortress constructed a century ago which dominated the surrounding countryside.

*

Val de Mula was a small, squalid Portuguese village, although it was hard to tell at a glance whether it had always been so or if the war had been its undoing. It consisted of two streets at right angles, which bisected a square built up on three sides and with a church on the fourth.

He found the Ordenanza gathered in the square, most of them sitting on their packs. A few were stretched out on their backs, apparently asleep.

Their uniform coats were of brown cloth, poorly cut and with green collars and sky-blue facings and on their feet they had a variety of shoes, boots and gaiters. Some of them wore no shoes at all and others a variety of espadrille made from strips of leather. Some had packs of which they had made seats, others did not and a few had rolled blankets of various colours, tied around their bodies from shoulder to waist. They wore hats of two types: some the same shako as the Portuguese regular army, a tall hat similar to the British stovepipe but more tapered; others a low-cut, broad-brimmed black hat. The majority seemed to carry a gun, although even these showed some variety of make and calibre. A few of them had only poleaxes, perhaps, thought Keane, liberated from some ancient castle. Several had pitchforks. Many were unshaven, and it was instantly evident that they had never been regular soldiers. For a start their ages varied between the young and the aged. There were boys of fourteen and old men who Keane thought must have been in their fifties or sixties. There was not much of a military air about them and they wore for the most part expressions of sullen indifference. Keane’s heart sank. Even Martin could see the calibre of the men. ‘Oh dear, sir. What are we to do with them?’

‘Use them, Will. That’s all. We don’t have to train them and we don’t have to drill them and we don’t have to fight with
them, thank God. They’re simply navvies. Muscle power, what they have of it.’

Heredia was scornful. ‘They are not soldiers. They’re nothing but old men and boys called out by conscription.’

‘I wouldn’t speak too soon, Heredia, I’m entrusting them to your command as joint
sergente
with their own.’

‘Sir?’

‘You are Portuguese. You can command them best of us all.’

It was a clever notion, he thought. Put Heredia in direct charge of them and you would give him more responsibility, which in turn would divert him from his argument with Silver and perhaps even give him some purpose.

Their officers, two of them wearing blue coats, and a brown-uniformed
sergente
were standing separate from the rank and file. The
sergente
and one officer, a lieutenant, were swarthy Portuguese. The other man, though, looked distinctly English. Seeing Keane and the others ride into the square, all three turned to greet them.

Captain Aeneas Foote was a tall, wiry man of about Keane’s age and he recognized him at once as a fellow officer of the 69th with whom he had served in Egypt. He had not much liked him then and saw no reason now to adjust his judgement. Foote puffed at a cheroot as he watched Keane. Keane seemed to recall that the dislike had been mutual and did not expect a cordial encounter.

Foote smiled at him with what to Keane seemed distinctly like a sneer. ‘James Keane, as I live and breathe, it is you. You recall we served together at Alexandria, when you were saved by that sarn’t of yours. What was his name?’ he thought for a moment. ‘McIlroy.’

‘Sarn’t McIlroy. Yes. You have a damned good memory, Foote.’

Foote looked him up and down and raised an eyebrow. ‘I see you’re no longer with the Inniskillens. Curious, your new uniform. Portuguese are you?

‘No, Foote, I’m not. Unlike you. I might say the same of your own blues. You’ll need to be careful you don’t get taken for a Frenchman. Might be shot by your own men.’