Soldier of the Queen (26 page)

Harriet smiled. ‘You, I think,’ she said.

London seemed empty. There were few people Colby knew and Caroline Matchett seemed to have vanished. He’d heard she’d been taken ill and, because he’d once been fond of her, he went to see if there was anything he could do. But the house at Hounslow was shut up and there was no sign of either her or the maid.

Wolseley’s report, a bulky wad of paper written out by a procession of War Office clerks, was almost finished when Colby’s father died and the telegram that arrived at his rooms sent him post-haste to Yorkshire.

A detachment of the 19th had already arrived and were billeted in Braxby under a lieutenant and a sergeant-major. The old man’s horse, with his boots reversed in the stirrups and covered with a black cloth, was brought from the stables as the gun carriage arrived. As it moved off, followed by the carriages of the mourners, it was escorted by the bearers, six lancers with black armbands, their dark uniforms sombre against the light of the winter day.

‘Wrap me up in my old stable jacket–’ the words of the song he’d so often heard his father singing rang round Colby’s head like a dirge – ‘And say a poor devil lies low. And six of the lancers will carry me. To the place where the best soldiers go.’

It was only a short distance to the churchyard and a band from the local militia provided the music, the solemn thump of the ‘Dead March’ giving the beat for the step. The rooks in the oaks were filling the air with their harsh cries, and the steady thud of the drums beat against the chilly day. The village street was filled with people of all ages, and the militia had lined the verges for the passing of the coffin, covered by the Union Jack and bearing the dead man’s hat and sword. Behind walked the sergeant-major of the 19th, carrying a cushion covered with decorations, and the officer and escort of lancers, their legs curiously thin-looking in the green overalls, their eyes sombre under the lance-caps, their cheeks brushed by the plumes fluttering in a breeze that set the trees creaking.

‘Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery…’

It didn’t seem to fit, Colby thought. His father had been the least miserable of men, and he suspected even that he’d enjoyed every minute of his life until the last few months.

‘He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower…’

The Rector had a voice like the base pipes of an organ, and he enjoyed using it. Glancing up, Colby saw his daughter standing opposite him. She was dressed in unrelieved black. She was watching him and, as he looked up at her, he saw her cheeks grow pink.

The sergeant, holding the folded Union Jack under his arm, lifted his head. His order, screamed at the top of his voice, brought the escort of lancers to the graveside, fortunately without falling into it, and they raised their carbines. The volley – a little ragged, Colby thought professionally – sent the rooks into the air. The second one was better and the third got it almost right. Then the soldiers filed away and waited to one side as the mourners moved round the grave. The thump and rattle of soil on the coffin lid sounded hollow and mournful.

As they headed for the carriages, Colby caught sight of Brosy and Grace, and then of the Cosgros, Claude all pink and white, Georgina tight-faced and hard-eyed in a way he’d never noticed before. They were no friends of his father’s but, he supposed, because they were neighbours they had to put in an appearance.

Afterwards, in a subdued murmur of conversation as the maids handed round the sandwiches and the port, the Rector attached himself to Colby, murmuring commiserations. ‘So sad, so sad,’ he announced.

‘Not sure he’d have thought so,’ Colby pointed out sharply. ‘He enjoyed his life more than most people and probably didn’t begrudge dying.’

The Rector looked shocked and, as he backed away, Georgina appeared, in front of Colby, pale-faced, more bosom than ever since she’d produced three children.

‘Colby, I’m so sorry,’ she said.

There seemed to be a speculative look in her eye and he wondered if she were making eyes at him again.

‘He had a good life,’ Colby said. It was a safe cliché. The old man
had
enjoyed his life, though he suspected he wouldn’t have complained at the chance of a few more years of it.

‘Are you married yet, Colby?’

‘No, Georgina. Still fancy free. It seems to be suiting you, though.’

She pulled a face that was meant, he supposed, to be non-committal. ‘Are you staying home for long?’

‘Few days. That’s all. I have a job in London at the moment. Temporarily on the staff.’

‘That’s where Claude belongs. He could bring his intelligence to bear.’

Claude, Colby thought, hadn’t got any bloody intelligence. Put him on the staff and the whole army would fall apart.

‘Somebody has to do it, I suppose,’ he said.

She touched his arm. ‘Claude returns to the regiment tomorrow, she said. ‘You must come for tea. Two lonely people–’

She left the words hanging in the air as she moved away, and he stared after her.

‘What are you grinning at?’

He swung round at his sister’s voice. ‘
Was
I grinning?’

‘Near enough. What about?’

He turned and smiled at her. ‘I think Georgina’s after me again,’ he said.

Before returning to London, Colby had to visit the solicitor in Harrogate over his father’s affairs. The weather was cold with a hint of rain in the air and there was a strong wind that sent the clouds scudding across the sky above the tops of the bare trees. Harrogate station was petrifyingly cold and full of people with pinched cheeks and red noses. A draft of infantry was heading south and were clasping their womenfolk alongside the train. As the whistle went they all climbed aboard and the train drew out, sprouting a forest of scarlet-clad arms.

Back in London, everybody seemed concerned with Paris. Besieged for several weeks now, it was clear it would fall before long. The Prussians had poured westwards, so sustained by French wine, it was said, there was a continuous line of broken bottles all the way from Sedan. Within a fortnight, they were seizing trains as they tried to escape and within three weeks had thrown a ring round the capital. The French had learned nothing and the Prussians had established their headquarters at Versailles where Bismarck, in a white uniform, indulged his curious mixture of gluttony and spartan simplicity, and the German Emperor, august, courteous, always in uniform, fussed about the level of the wine in the bottles at the end of the meals.

With the increasing cold, it soon became clear that hunger was beginning to take its toll inside the city, and a bitter Christmas came and went with the Prussians still outside. It was obvious their leaders were growing worried by the protraction of the war and by the fact that the contempt the rest of Europe had felt for the popinjay Empire was now directed against the ruthless Prussians. Bismarck developed varicose veins and the Crown Prince – probably for the benefit of his mother-in-law, Queen Victoria – was expressing himself weary of the fighting. Clearly something had to be done to end the siege and there was only one way to do it. What Colby had predicted became a fact, and the first shells fell on the city two days after Christmas. In no time they were falling at a rate of three and four hundred a day, killing men, women and children. Demoralised, half-starved and on the point of revolution, Paris capitulated in less than a month.

Wolseley gave Colby the sort of look he would have directed at a major prophet.

‘Well?’ he asked, gesturing at
The Times
. ‘What do you think will happen now?’

‘There’ll be the usual victory march through the city, sir, I expect. To make Paris know it’s been beaten. I see the Germans are demanding enormous reparations. That ought to help quieten them down a little, too.’

Wolseley shrugged. ‘And that, I suppose, will be that. The Germans will go home and Paris will return to having a good time as it did after Waterloo.’

Colby paused. ‘Not this time, sir,’ he said. ‘This time there’ll be no return to the old days. At least not for a long time.’

Wolseley’s eyebrows lifted. ‘Are we about to be treated to more prophetic wisdom?’ he asked. ‘Why not?’

‘There’ll be trouble, sir.’

‘What sort of trouble?’

‘Insurrection, sir.’

‘What!’ Wolseley looked startled. ‘Another? They’ve already had three revolutions since 1789.’

Colby shrugged. ‘There are to be elections, sir, and when they come the Empire will be blamed for starting the war and the Republic for prolonging it. France will elect monarchists to be on the safe side and Paris, which has always considered itself the brain of France, won’t stand for that.’

Wolseley looked at him steadily. ‘That’s a startling suggestion,’ he said.

‘I believe it to be true, sir.’

Wolseley gestured. ‘If you prove right, then I should say you’re way ahead of all your contemporaries in a sense of situation. It should stand you in good stead. You’d better go and get it all written down.’

The news from Paris very quickly followed the pattern Colby had suggested. The place was revictualled after its months of starvation, but the elections had struck it like a thunderclap. Only a handful of the militant extremists of the left had been elected.

As Colby had predicted, they had been routed at the polls by the Monarchists, and Adolphe Thiers, a ruthless little man with a round head, steel spectacles and a predilection for dictatorship, had been elected President, something which immediately started the hotheads in Paris talking of self-government. What made it worse was that as the armistice talks with the Germans dragged on, it became clear that France was to lose all Alsace and most of Lorraine, including both Metz and Strasbourg.

‘It’ll mean war in perpetuity,’ Colby said. ‘The French will never lie down under this and, as soon as they’re strong enough, they’ll try to get it all back.’

Despite their rage, there was little the French could do but accept the terms, and they had to suffer the march past of thirty thousand Germans through their capital and endure the sound of German trumpets and German bands. Shop windows were shuttered and draped with black, and savage retribution was dealt to civilians who appeared to be too friendly. As soon as the Germans left, the Parisians made the derisive gesture of scrubbing the pavements with disinfectant.

‘Well,’ Wolseley said, ‘it seems your talk of revolution was a little off the mark. But the Foreign Secretary’s interested in France and so is the Secretary for War, so I think we ought to go and take a look. How do you feel about another visit to Paris?’

The French capital seemed to be haunted by the half-sweetish, half-foetid odour of cooked horseflesh, and its wounds were still visible in smashed and desolate houses and the fading signs outside the shops,
Boucherie, Canine et Féline
. There seemed to be battalions of women in black, and small portions of siege bread, framed and glazed, were on sale in the novelty shops. Faces were bitter and Colby wasn’t surprised to hear talk of undying hatred for everything German. But the revictualling of the city was almost complete and, as Colby and Wolseley occupied their rooms in a hotel at the bottom of the Champs Elysées, herds of cattle were still being driven in and it was already possible to order a meal in a restaurant.

With Wolseley invited to spend a few days in the country with the American ambassador, Colby was left to himself, and, walking about the city, it didn’t take him long to become aware of a dangerous ferment that was bubbling up. Food had done much to restore the damage done to bodies but there was more than that to be repaired, it seemed. The humiliation of defeat, the peace terms, the drabness of the city and the dangerous French ennui after the drama of the siege were working and the population was existing in a vacuum. The city was still licking its wounds and, under the feeling of peace brought by the warm weather and the spring blossom, there were sharp anxieties and fear. Blood-red posters spattered the walls and, with soldiers everywhere, an alarm from the direction of Montmartre sent him in a hansom to see what was happening.

When Wolseley reappeared, he announced that he was returning to London but was leaving Colby in Paris for another week or two to keep an eye on things.

‘I think everything’s quietening down nicely,’ he said. ‘The American ambassador feels it’s all over now and that, with the prospect of good business and an abundance of food, Paris is recovering.’

‘I disagree, sir,’ Colby said.

Wolseley’s eyes glittered. ‘You have a great gift for telling me I don’t know what I’m talking about,’ he said testily. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘The poorer classes don’t seem to be benefiting from the food, because they can’t afford it, anyway, and I don’t think the new government’s helped them by deciding to end the pay of the men of the National Guard. To most of them it’s been a form of dole. They demonstrated in the Place de la Bastille yesterday. It was nothing but a march past, but it went on from ten in the morning until six in the evening, with bands and their colours draped in black. All the speeches were anti-government. The mood was ugly, sir.’

Wolseley listened quietly, gesturing to him to continue.

‘They also took away from the artillery parks about two hundred cannon which were due to be handed over to the Germans. They claim they were paid for by public subscription during the siege so that they’ve never been the property of the government to hand over. They’ve got them up in Montmartre.’

Wolseley was silent for a moment then he rose and stared out of the window. ‘You must be due for leave,’ he said unexpectedly.

‘I hardly think so, sir.’

‘You’d better take some, nevertheless. And you’d better spend it in Paris. I want to know what happens and so will Cardwell and the Foreign Secretary. But I can’t keep you here officially. You’d better take leave until the business resolves itself. I want someone with an ear to the ground. But this time don’t get involved. If anything happens, come home.’