Send Me Safely Back Again (36 page)

Hanley doubted that promise, and had almost forgotten the loan made more than a year ago. ‘That is not my concern. I wish to speak to you about a lady.’

‘Of course, yes,’ said Wickham lasciviously. ‘I believe there is a good house just off the main square.’

‘I mean La Doña Margarita.’ Hanley was trying to make his questions blunt, almost brutal, but doubted he was being convincing. He needed to frighten Wickham because the major could tell him something that might just help.

‘Bit late for you there, old boy, given her state.’

‘She is not with child, and she is your mistress.’

Wickham looked shocked for a moment, but only for a brief instant. ‘You should not listen to gossip, old boy.’

‘You are lovers. Shall I write to your wife and tell her?’

‘Scarcely the act of a gentleman, my dear fellow.’ Wickham looked him up and down. ‘Yes, we are intimate. What business is that of you or anyone else? I know you and your friends keep that flash whore in Lisbon. Why should you care?’

Hanley stared at him, but Wickham stared back. The man was probably no stranger to confrontations like this. ‘Because of who she is.’

‘Bit late to worry about her honour, old boy. That ship sank without trace long ago.’

‘I am concerned about your honour.’

‘You have spent too long with that old Methodist Williams. Who will care?’

‘They may care enough to end your career. They may care enough to put you on trial.’

‘You’re raving, old man.’

‘She is a spy for the enemy.’ Hanley did not know that, but finally Wickham looked surprised and worried. ‘What have you told her?’

‘Oh my God.’ Wickham spoke quickly, nervously. ‘That bitch, that trollop . . . Oh no, damn it, man, you cannot mean that my loyalty is suspected. Oh God, you can’t think that.’ He rallied a little. ‘I am an English gentleman.’

Hanley thought he heard Dobson mutter, ‘Well, that’s all right, then.’

‘Does she ask you about the army?’

‘We don’t talk a lot. Look, the whore lured me on, but I have taken pleasure with her and no more.’

‘Tell me about her body.’ Hanley snapped the words like a command.

‘What?’ Wickham was baffled. ‘What the hell do you want to know that for? She is a woman, for God’s sake, a damned woman with all the usual meat on offer.’

‘Her arms?’ Hanley thought of the story of the burning hospital and the heroine of Saragossa.

‘What about her damned arms? She has two of them just like any other dollymop. They’re smooth and they reach from her shoulders to her hands.’

‘Not scarred?’

Wickham looked baffled. Presumably he had not heard the story or simply did not care.

‘Of course they are not damned well scarred, although they will be if I get my hands on the trollop. I’ll flog the bitch until she is raw.’

‘You will not.’ Hanley could not help noticing that Wickham had not questioned being interrogated by a mere lieutenant. The sign of a guilty conscience, no doubt. ‘Major Wickham, you shall not see the lady again. Stay away from her and do not communicate with her in any way. Your reputation, and indeed your career, depends on this. So may the success of the army.’ Hanley felt he might as well lay it on thickly.

‘Of course, of course, you have my word on that. And I swear I told her nothing, nothing at all.’

Hanley let himself smile. ‘I am sure of it. None of this need go any farther. Enjoy your dinner.’

Wickham was white faced as he walked away and Hanley thought he was even shaking slightly. ‘I must be better at this than I thought,’ he said softly to himself.

He would see the lady later. For the moment, Hanley needed to find the priest at Holy Trinity and see if the man could tell him anything.

They were near the church before Dobson broke the silence.

‘Is the lady a French spy, sir?’ he asked, his voice matter-of-fact.

‘I do not honestly know,’ said Hanley. Dobson had good instincts and broad experience. ‘You know that she is a spy of sorts, carrying messages and money. Whether she is really on our side or works for the enemy is hard to say.’ He gave Dobson a quick summary of his suspicions.

‘I’ll not hurt a lass, sir. Not for you, not for anybody.’

‘It should not come to that.’

‘Just so you know, sir.’ The veteran thought for a moment. ‘That driver of hers, Ramón, is a good lad. Knows how to handle himself. May not be able to put him down unless it is permanent.’

‘Hopefully she is innocent and there will be no need to try to deal with him.’

The priest did have a message, and Hanley marvelled that Espinosa had reached him so quickly. Another courier was coming. At sunset he was to be waiting at a cattle pen just to the south of the highest crest of the big ridge, the Cerro de Medellín. The name sounded like a bad omen.

‘There is a carving in the wall of Saint John the Baptist. It is very old, my son,’ explained the father, who himself must have been seventy or more.

‘What time is sunset, Dob?’

‘About an hour, give or take,’ said the veteran, mildly surprised that the officer did not know this.

There was time. ‘We’ve got some walking to do.’

They went quickly, for Hanley saw that the sun was indeed low in the sky. For a while the two men followed the road, but soon this veered to their right towards the stream cutting across the plain, and so they went straight on, heading for the hill. By the time they were beginning to climb they saw a column of weary redcoats ahead of them. The men had blue facings and were covered in dust.

‘KGL,’ said Dobson.

There were two brigades of King’s German Legion infantry in Wellesley’s army. The officers and many of the men were King George’s Hanoverian subjects, who had chosen not to accept Bonaparte’s occupation of their country.

A staff officer rode back along the column and noticed Hanley. It was one of Colonel Murray’s men, and he waved and stopped for a moment. ‘Some damned fool sent them to the wrong place. The poor devils marched extra miles, began to set up camp, and then had to pack up and march again.’

‘Goddamned staff!’ said Hanley cheerfully.

‘Wastrels and tomfools the lot of them,’ said the officer, and set his horse off down the slope. ‘Best to you, Hanley!’

They kept on up the slopes. The Germans marched down into a dip and vanished for a while, but when Hanley and Dobson were higher they looked and could see the leading battalion halted, ready to be dismissed to their much-anticipated rest. There were troops moving elsewhere on the rolling hill, and others settling down or settled for the night. They passed through the camp of an Irish regiment, the men chattering to each other happily. Hanley avoided looking any of them in the eye, as he did not want to force them to notice an officer and so have to react and show him proper respect. The redcoats were equally keen not to have to stand to attention and salute and so interrupt their rest, and thus by mutual consent the lieutenant and the lance sergeant walked through the camp without disturbing anyone. Hanley was puzzled by the packs of a group still formed up and marching to mount guard.

‘Kerry Militia?’ he read from the badge painted on the pack. ‘What the blazes are the militia doing here?’ Britain’s second army of the militia regiments served full time with the colours, but were not required to serve overseas.

‘Volunteers,’ said Dobson. ‘There’s lots of them transferred into the real army. Good boys, most of them, once they toughen up. A lot haven’t been in long enough to be issued with packs by their new regiments. You see plenty of them wearing their old jackets as well.’

Hanley thought for a while and then stopped when they were through the camp and no one was near. He shaded his eyes for a moment and looked across beyond the valley and the stream where another, lower hill stood. Troops moved there as well, but these were French, and he saw them as dark masses or shadows in the grass. A few wisps of smoke and some much thicker clouds drifted in the light air from where the enemy guns had fired for a while at the British as they took up position. Beyond the smoke he saw a group of riders racing towards the top of the hill.
No doubt they were enemy officers, perhaps even King Joseph himself.

‘Are we ready for the French, Dob?’

Hanley saw Dobson frown in the red light of the setting sun. They could still see it, but lower down the slope the sun must have gone and the shadows were thickening.

‘They’re good lads, sir. A lot of second battalions, so plenty of them are young and this will be their first fight. Not too many of us who have seen how it’s done.’

‘Can we beat the French? There are a lot of them.’

‘Well, they’ll know they’ve been in a scrap.’

Hanley said no more and they began walking once again. The round peak of the Medellín Hill was a good landmark, and they pushed on towards it as straight as they could for a good five minutes.

‘I reckon that is it,’ said Hanley, pointing up the slope towards a low stone enclosure. He followed the wall, and found the carved stone with the figure of a bearded man. It was badly worn, and in the fading light he would have to take the priest’s word for it that it was supposed to be John the Baptist.

Dobson stiffened. He had been carrying his musket down low. Now he raised it slowly and eased back the hammer to cock it with a firm click. He nodded at two vine trees at the far corner of the pen.

‘I could shoot you down where you stand,’ said a voice. ‘Perhaps both of you. I have two pistols.’

Dobson said nothing, but kept raising his musket. With a sudden rush the butt was couched against his shoulder, the muzzle aimed squarely at the trees.

‘You could try,’ said Hanley, with a confidence he did not feel. He imagined a pistol or musket aimed at his chest. Would he see the spark of the flint, the flare of the powder and then the explosion as a ball hurtled towards him to sink deep into his flesh?

He gulped, hoped no one heard him and then gambled again. ‘Or you could come out and talk, Luiz.’

There was a pause, then a laugh, and the barely audible sound of a hammer being gently lowered back into place.

‘Of course,’ said Velarde, as he stepped from the cover of the trees. ‘We are on the same side, after all. Well, more or less.’ The sun began to sink below the hills to the west.

Dobson made no move, not understanding the Spanish words. His firelock followed the Spanish colonel, his finger still poised on the trigger.

‘It’s all right, Dob,’ said Hanley. The veteran lowered his musket, but kept it cocked and ready.

‘I presume we are waiting for the same thing,’ said Velarde. ‘You really do impress me, Guillermo, with your talent for finding things out.’

‘We may not be waiting for the same reason.’

‘Really.’

Some distance away a musket fired, the sound soft. It was followed by several more.

‘The piquets showing their hate,’ pronounced Velarde.

Dobson’s eyes flicked down the slope towards the French, but only for a moment.

‘And what about you, Luiz? Why did you kill the messenger this morning?’

‘Why blame me, and not the French?’

Hanley said nothing. There was another shot from down the slope of the hill and then silence once again.

‘He recognised me,’ said Velarde with the slightest of shrugs. ‘It was unfortunate, but could not be helped. He was not a bright man and would have told everyone that I was a French spy. Someone would probably have been stupid enough to kill me if the word spread.

‘You do not seem surprised. Well done indeed, Guillermo.’

‘So now I know, why should I not kill you?’

‘Because you are smart.’ Velarde shrugged. ‘I tell things to the French. Or rather I tell them to Espinosa and he tells the French. We tell them some nonsense, but more truth even if it is sometimes too late to be of much value. That way we both are
trusted and so they give us their own secrets. That way we can fight them.’

‘Who is we?’

‘I want a new Spain. One country, not divided into the old kingdoms. I want it enlightened and liberal, where men of worth choose their leaders and the king rules by consent. You must remember our talks.’

‘I believe King Joseph wants the same thing,’ said Hanley.

‘Yes, or so he says, but this new country cannot be made by outsiders. Do you think Bonaparte truly gives anything and does not come simply to take?’

‘Which leader promises what you want? Or do you wish to lead this new Spain yourself?’

‘They could do worse.’ Velarde chuckled. ‘They could do a lot worse. But no, I do not belong to any faction. Nor does Espinosa. Nor do we agree on the new Spain, but we do agree that it must be made by Spaniards – not Castilians or Andalusians or anyone else, but by Spaniards. So we must beat the French first, and so we help anyone who fights them strongly. Too many of our people are more concerned to outwit their rivals than the real enemy. I will not get caught up in that. I will certainly not die for that. If I must die for my country then so be it, but not for Cuesta, or Palafox or the Junta or anyone else.’

‘A good speech,’ said Hanley. ‘How much is true? You never struck me as the stuff martyrs are made from.’