Words of Command (Hervey 12) (Matthew Hervey) (50 page)

‘Well, that’s nice, sir.’

‘Indeed – the very reason, I suppose, that the commander-in-chief has bestowed it. And so if the regiment were to be brigaded at any time, the brevet would give him seniority over the other lieutenant-colonels – unless any of them had a brevet gazetted earlier – and so he would command the brigade.’

Johnson was much awed.

Meanwhile in the library, the surgeon was pronouncing himself satisfied. The amputation, for all that it had been done
in extremis
, had been without complication, and the wound was healing well.

‘Thanks to your skill, Mr Milne, and the sar’nt-major’s constitution,’ said Hervey.

‘Aye, Colonel – that and chloride of soda.’

Hervey had no idea of what he spoke, but Milne had much impressed him as a scientific sort of practitioner. ‘It sounds foul-tasting, but evidently efficacious.’

‘Why, man, if ye were to drink it ye’d be beyond all hope o’ my medicine. It’s a disinfectant.’

‘I stand corrected.’

Corrected, but not enlightened. However, he had not come to advance his chirological knowledge.

‘I’ll see the sar’nt-major in private now, if that’s in order, Mr Milne.’

‘Indeed it is, Colonel. He’s fit to travel, and to undergo punishment.’

The surgeon’s humour could be a little arch, but Hervey found he could live with it, especially after so definitive a demonstration of his skill.

Milne gathered up the appurtenances of his profession, made what passed for a click of heels, and withdrew, leaving him alone with ‘the patient’.

‘Well, Sar’nt-Major, I’m most excessively pleased to find you in this way.’

Collins, propped up with enormous cushions in a bed the like of which he’d rarely seen, let alone slept in, smiled encouragingly. ‘Another month of this and I’d be ruined, Colonel. That countess’s the best of nurses, though you’d never think it to look at her.’

Hervey nodded. She could assume the look of the Teuton. ‘I know what you mean.’

‘Well, at this rate in another week I’ll be handing in my sword to Mr Lincoln’s stores –
left
-handing in, that is.’

Hervey could smile but a little at the drollness. ‘I see no cause for that.’

But Collins shook his head; there was no precedent he knew of for an invalid at regimental duty.

‘And, you know, Colonel, that I’ll be leaving the regiment arsy versy?’

Hervey looked mystified.

‘Well, I mean, when a man joins the Sixth, ten to one he can’t write, and when he leaves, ten to one he can. Whereas I
could
write when I joined!’

Hervey laughed with him, before sitting in the chair next to the bed and putting his forage cap on the counterpane.

‘There’s no cause for you to leave.’

Collins shook his head again. ‘A serjeant-major with no sword arm, Colonel?’

‘There are other positions.’

He shook his head again. ‘Colonel, I can’t even ride roughs with just one hand.’

‘No, not that. I want you to be quartermaster.’

Collins looked at him, disbelieving.

‘Mr Lincoln is to send in his papers. And as I’m sure you’re aware, Mr Rennie is to have a commission in the Royals.’

Collins was still astonished. ‘I suppose I could learn to write left-handed soon enough.’

‘And have a clerk do the most of it.’

Silence.

And then Collins nodded, slowly. ‘Thank you, Colonel. Thank you very much. I’d always hoped one day …’

‘Well, it’s come somewhat early. And despite the circumstances, I’m very glad of it.’

With a little awkwardness, they managed to shake hands.

Hervey’s leave-taking of the colonel-in-chief was not a prolonged affair, but he took much satisfaction in it – pleasure indeed. She received him in a little south-facing drawing room, her writing case open on a table by the window, and the produce of evidently some hours’ correspondence sealed and waiting for her footman.

‘I have written to Lord George Irvine in the most appreciative terms, Colonel Hervey, for all the courtesy you have shown me.’

‘The honour was sufficient, ma’am, but I thank you nevertheless.’

‘And not merely courtesy, but your protection. I am well aware that I put myself in harm’s way.’

‘And the regiment is all admiration for it, ma’am.’

‘But I placed you and your regiment in harm’s way too thereby.’

‘It is the occupation of a soldier, ma’am, no more.’

She smiled as if to say she could not agree but would not pursue it.

Nor did she, and for a quarter of an hour they spoke instead of the present state of the country (and of her own), as well as of more agreeable matters.

There was no undue formality. There never had been, but the events of the last month had made for a particular easiness. It was hard to think of her as his junior in years – by, what, ten, twelve? Her composure was that of a woman twice her age, and her resolution – her courage – the equal of any. What a prize, indeed, had the regiment obtained.

When she had satisfied him that her return to Schloss Ehrenburg was all arranged with perfect safety, she rose and went to her writing table.

‘Colonel Hervey, I should like to present you with this expression of appreciation.’

She handed him a green leather case the size of her palm.

‘Ma’am, I’m …’

It was not unusual for such an expression to be given, but he found it awkward nevertheless.

She looked away as he opened it.

He expected a medallion of some sort – the usual appreciation. But it was a miniature, and a very fine one. It caught her likeness – her appeal – very exactly.

‘Ma’am, I’m honoured. I … shall place it in a position of prominence … in the regiment.’

‘Where you will, Colonel Hervey,’ she replied softly.

She walked with him to the villa’s entrance, where Fairbrother and Johnson were waiting with the horses.

Fairbrother observed the look upon the face of his good friend. He’d seen it from time to time in others; he’d once known it himself. What the attention of a pair of fine eyes could bring …

And soon a fair wind, and steam, would be taking him back to – what? – ‘the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other’?

Ought
– but not.

And, of course, his friend would put on that precious mantle again, that mask – the mask of command – and sally on:
For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me
…

Though in truth was it not more ‘the mask of night’, that else would make a man blanch (
‘Thou know’st the mask of night is on my face, Else would a maiden blush’
) …

He sighed, and looked away.

‘A single man, good fortune … and want of a wife.’

‘What’s that, sir?’ asked Johnson.

‘Oh, nothing, nothing,’ said Fairbrother airily.

Then adding below his breath, ‘but in truth –
everything
.’

fn1
‘Africa always brings something new.’

Two days after Hervey took his fictional leave of the Princess Augusta, Dutch troops led by King William’s second son, Prince Frederik, occupied Brussels, at a stroke uniting the hitherto disparate Belgian uprising. Street fighting followed, some of it bloody, and during the night of 26–27 September the Dutch beat a retreat. The committee of the various insurgent factions now transformed itself into a provisional government and on 4 October declared independence. The revolt, which had hitherto been largely confined to the Walloon districts, spread rapidly throughout Flanders. Garrison after garrison surrendered, regiments from the southern provinces going over to the provisional government. The remnants of the Dutch forces retired into Antwerp, and with yet more bloodshed, embittering the Flemings as much as the fighting in Brussels had embittered the Walloons. King William appealed to the signatories of the Articles of London to restore the situation.
^fn1

Representatives of the signatory powers – Austria, Prussia, Russia and Great Britain (together with France) – met in London on 4 November, the timing opportune. Not only were Austria and Russia preoccupied with their own internal difficulties (the Polish revolt in particular, and unrest throughout Germany), but a change of government in Britain brought a new foreign secretary, Lord Palmerston, sympathetic to the Belgian cause. The Tories had won the general election following the death of George IV, but in November the Duke of Wellington, having refused to support reform of the House of Commons, was defeated on a motion to examine the accounts of the Civil List (in effect a vote of no confidence), the Tories themselves dividing, and resigned. A minority Whig government was formed under Earl Grey, to which Palmerston defected. And to The Hague’s dismay, under Palmerston’s influence the representatives of the signatory powers refused to back the Dutch king, instead imposing an armistice and declaring that their intervention would be confined to negotiating a settlement on the basis of Belgian independence. Palmerston’s concern, besides any natural sympathy for the Belgians, was to check French ambitions, not least to keep the Scheldt estuary and Belgian coast out of potentially hostile hands (Talleyrand, the French plenipotentiary, had made a beguiling proposal to carve Belgium into three parts – Antwerp and the coast to be a British protectorate, the eastern part to be annexed by Prussia, and the lion’s share to be reincorporated with France). While the plenipotentiaries were deliberating, the provisional government in Brussels resolved that their new state should be a constitutional monarchy and that the (Dutch) house of Orange-Nassau should be forever excluded from the throne, a committee being duly appointed to draw up a constitution.

On 20 January 1831 the plenipotentiaries issued a protocol defining the conditions of separation. Holland was to retain her old boundaries of 1790, and Belgium was to have the remainder of the territory assigned to the kingdom of the Netherlands in 1815. However, Luxemburg, hitherto a part of the southern provinces of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, was excluded from the settlement. The new Belgian state was to be perpetually neutral, and its integrity and inviolability guaranteed by all and each of the signatory powers. The provisional government took objection to these and other conditions, as well as proposals as to the choice of monarch; proposals that prompted the Dutch king to give his assent in the hope of winning the plenipotentiaries’ support for the candidature of the Prince of Orange.

It was a forlorn hope. Palmerston strongly favoured Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, the uncle of Princess (later Queen) Victoria, who had been living in England since the death of his wife. The other powers raised no objection, and Brussels agreed, electing him king on 4 June. But the Dutch king rejected the overall proposals (known as the XVIII Articles), announcing his intention ‘to throw his army into the balance with a view to obtaining more equitable terms of separation’.

The Dutch army, once one of the most effective in Europe, had been humiliated by the rebels’ easy successes and was bent on restoring its reputation. On 2 August, the Prince of Orange, at the head of 30,000 picked men and a formidable force of artillery, crossed the frontier. The Belgians – the army of the Scheldt and the army of the Meuse – were taken by surprise. The army of the Meuse fell back in disarray on Liège, while that of the Scheldt was also forced to beat a rapid retreat towards Brussels. Leopold now took personal command, and although the Dutch worsted the army of the Meuse at Louvain they did not press on to the capital. On hearing that a French army had entered Belgium at Leopold’s invitation, the Prince of Orange rapidly concluded an armistice (brokered by the British minister in Brussels, Sir Robert Adair), recrossing the border into Holland on 20 August (though the garrison at Antwerp remained), whereupon the French too recrossed into France.

The ‘Ten Days’ Campaign’ had gained its purpose, however: when the London conference reassembled the plenipotentiaries revised the Articles more favourably towards The Hague. The northwestern (Walloon) portion of Luxemburg was assigned to Belgium, but a considerable portion of Belgian Limburg was ceded to the Dutch, giving them command of both banks of the Meuse from Maastricht to the Gelderland frontier.

Although the new Articles created profound dissatisfaction in both Belgium and Holland, King Leopold, by threatening to abdicate, managed to secure acceptance in Brussels, and on 15 November 1831 the treaty was signed in London by the five great powers and by the Belgian envoy, solemnly recognizing Belgium as an independent state whose perpetual neutrality and inviolability was guaranteed by the signatories.

Still King William would not assent, objecting in particular to the proposed regulations regarding navigation of the Scheldt, and he refused to evacuate Antwerp. Throughout the spring and summer of 1832
notes verbales
flew between London and The Hague. The conference did its utmost to find some accommodation but ultimately had to resort to the threat of coercion. Although Austria, Prussia and Russia declined to take any direct part, they approved the use of force as a last resort by Britain and France, who on 22 October concluded a convention for joint action. Notice was given to The Hague to withdraw all troops before 13 November on pain of blockade of Dutch ports, an embargo on Dutch ships in the allies’ harbours, and armed action against the garrisons remaining in Belgian territory. William immediately refused.

The allies acted promptly, an Anglo-French squadron at once sailing to blockade Dutch ports and the mouth of the Scheldt; and in response to an appeal from the Belgian government a French army of 60,000 men again crossed the Belgian frontier, and laid siege to Antwerp.

The siege lasted a month, the Dutch capitulating just before Christmas, though Rear-Admiral Koopman burned his twelve gunboats rather than surrender them. The blockade and embargo continued, however, until the Dutch gave way and evacuated all troops from the former southern provinces. By the Convention of London, signed on 21 May 1833, William undertook to commit no acts of hostility against Belgium while a definitive peace treaty was concluded. Negotiations dragged on for several years, however, principally over the question of Luxemburg, but Dutch opinion gradually swung towards conciliation, not least because of the expense of keeping the army on a war footing. On 19 April 1839 Baron Dedel signed the treaty on behalf of the Dutch king.