Peter the Renegade
by S. R. Crockett
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: None.
Description: EPISODE FIVE – Capturing a King.
Swearwords: None.
Description: EPISODE FIVE – Capturing a King.
Peter Blake, Scottish adventurer, late of the East India Company’s service, later still scout-master to His Majesty’s 4th Dragoons, has lost despatches and almost wrecked an army by one foolish drinking bout in the wine-cellars of a captured town. Sir John Moore is falling back to the sea. The French, under Soult, are following in overwhelming numbers. Peter, having only the gallows to expect, slips out between the armies and finds a new life as a Captain of Spanish guerrilla fighters. Angry at the death of two companions – renegades like himself – he starts off, greatly reinforced, to help the French to capture Moore at Corunna. But the sight of the red uniforms, and especially some of the words of a young officer – a fellow-countryman of his own – work a sudden conversion. To enable the British to hold out till the ships come, he captures the dangerous French batteries and destroys the guns. He has now set off all alone with Froyla to recover ten thousand pounds of the treasure abandoned by General Moore, with which he will buy the rights of the man who, by a family arrangement, must necessarily marry Froyla. They have been waiting among the mountains till the passes are clear of Soult’s army, now pouring southward out of Gallicia to oppose Sir Arthur Wellesley, whose landing is reported from Lisbon. To enable him to buy out the rights in the Cardoños-Feliçé family property, and to marry Froyla, Peter brings away £10,000 of the abandoned treasure.
King Joseph Buonaparte was a proud man when he rode out of Madrid amid the cheers of a rabble to whom his steward distributed largesse, and the staider salutations of comfortable citizens, who wished for nothing so much as peace in which to fatten their money-bags. For the French, if they plundered the North, spent their money in Madrid like water.
‘I have them at last,’ he murmured, tapping the pocket of the green uniform he wore in imitation of his brother. ‘Generals and marshals. Now they shall take the word from me. I have the Emperor’s written orders. The Generalissimo is King Joseph – moi el Rey!’
The young man in the carriage with him pretended not to hear, not because he feared to be indiscreet but because he had heard nothing else ever since leaving Paris.
‘Count Leon,’ the King repeated, ‘this time Marshal Massena shall not flout me. I have that here, as you know, which will bring even Soult to his knees!’
‘It is indeed to be hoped so most fervently,’ said the young secretary courteously.
‘We need not hope for what we have,’ exclaimed his Majesty, suddenly losing patience. ‘Do you see that – his Imperial Highness’s hand from beginning to end – the supreme direction of the central army, whoever is in command, and of the other armies whenever I am in their several provinces – Bessières to be treated as he deserves, Jourdain to be put in his place, Béliard on the retired list, my establishment to be doubled, twice as much money to be paid in monthly – that is what we have gained by going to Paris!’
‘Your majesty speaks no more than truth! There is nothing like seeing the Emperor face to face.’
‘Ah, he knows my value, old Joseph! He has an affection for me, the little Napoleon. Many a beating I saved him from because I was our mother’s favourite. And he does not forget, nor yet the crowns I sent him at Brienne. He cannot do without me; whenever there is a hard nut to crack, it is ‘Where is Joseph – Joseph, my brother? He conquered Naples for me and put down Fra Diavolo. He will pick Spain out of the fire and put it on my plate.’ And so I should have done long ago, had it not been for those wretched quarrelling marshals. But now they have a head and that head is … the King!’
Count Leon smiled to himself. What Napoleon could scarcely manage with all the reins of Government and prestige in his hands was wholly beyond the power of his good, easy brother. But though all save Joseph’s Spanish adventurers knew the truth, it was judged wisest to let him find out for himself.
Count Manuel de Leon was no adventurer, but a man of wide possessions. Only, as he sometimes smilingly agreed, Fortune had dealt hardly with his patriotism in placing the most valuable of these among the vineyards of Médoc. He was, therefore, a Spaniard by race and training, but compelled to pass for a well-wisher of the French because of his vast holdings in that country. Yet he had become the friend and confidential adviser of King Joseph, as much from pity and a curious personal liking as anything.
At Vilalba, the first village on the route to Medina del Campo, King Joseph, who loved not the saddle, descended and took his place in the comfortable carriage which was to convey him to his armies. Count Leon would far rather have remained where he was, but his business being to accompany his King, he was compelled to give up his white alezan with the sweeping tail and shut himself up in the great padded interior of the King’s state coach.
They were accompanied only by a small personal escort, because Joseph had sent on ahead the five thousand horsemen who had come with him from France. The Tagus road was counted the safest in Spain. Details of troops traversed it at all hours. Every two leagues a military post had been established. The towns were fortresses, strongly held by the French, or by his own favourite Spanish army, the ‘Josephists’, composed of Madrillenes and such partisans of his great lords as could be gathered together – an army which manœuvred well enough on the Prado or on the plain beneath the royal palace, but which would certainly desert en masse to the enemy at the first battle.
But this was a thing also mercifully hidden from the King, who knew that the exiled Ferdinand was no great ‘Ferdinandist’ and that he contented himself very well in France, where nobody worried him, and he had his wife to himself. So Joseph Buonaparte imagined that a little showing of favour to Spaniards and a good deal of bickering with the marshals would win him favour with the Spanish people.
But in spite of his best intentions, his kindest thoughts and endeavours, the open favouritism he showed to all things Spanish, he still remained the intruder, the alien, the ‘Outlander’.
King Joseph had given the honour of escorting him to a battalion of the Royal Palace Guards, which had ridden all the way to the frontier with him, where they had so distinguished themselves by their magnificent apparel of scarlet and gold that Ney’s veterans, scoffing openly, had called them the Tambour Majors. They carried indeed so much gold lace that they were popularly believed to be proof against ordinary pistol bullets, and even musketry fire if at all oblique.
No doubt the Tambour Majors were individually gallant men. Indeed, many of them proved it afterwards from Vimiera to the walls of Toulouse. But as they jogged along under the stars, the chill wind of the Sierras sweeping out the Tagus valley, and the flaws of rain whisking and snatching at their cloaks, it is perhaps small wonder that they gazed with no friendly feelings at the sleeping figure of the ‘Outlander’ monarch whom they had sworn to protect, extended on the cunningly devised couch within.
Which may explain the fact why, when at the great bend of the river east of Talavera, where the thick wood called Peñada Grande makes a green darkness across the road, at the first shout of ‘Mina, Mina’, the household troops set spurs to their horses and rode as hard as they could back to Madrid with tidings of terrible disaster.
It was Peter who opened the carriage door, pistol in hand, demanding instant surrender. Peter it was who, with his faithful Giralda command, surrounded and defended the carriage. The rest of the partida hurled itself upon the convoy of rich meats for the royal table, valuable arms, badges of orders, swords of honour, and all the paraphernalia of luxury and comfort with which it behoved the brother of Napoleon to travel through the ‘loyal’ parts of his own dominions.
The Count de Leon was under no misapprehension as to what had happened. He knew where the royal guards would go to, and the tale that they would spread when they got there.
But he was ready for Peter when that bold leader opened the coach door. He pointed to the figure of the slumbering King clearly discernible under the light of the lamp which burned above his head.
‘My father,’ he said in pure Castilian,‘he has Mina’s pass to go to his country house as Yuste.’
‘Hum,’ said Peter extracting a gold piece from his waistcoat pocket and presenting the image and superscription of ‘Joseph, King of Spain’.
‘I was not aware that they coined money with your father’s picture!’
Count Leon took his defeat well.
‘Send back your men a little and we shall talk. You are not Spanish? No? English, I think?’
‘I am from Scotland, which though poorer, is the better kingdom.’
Peter waved a hand for his men to fall back out of earshot. He was the man of the Treasure, and they trusted him fully. He would arrange about the ransom. The old man looked rich and the young one promising. They would trust their leader. Was he not Froyla’s husband? His future – indeed all his interests – were theirs. Let these noisy brutes roar and drink, kindle fires and dance the jota. They were of the breed of La Giralda, and their chief would act for them in all things as was fitting.
‘My friend,’ said Count Leon, speaking rapidly as one who may be interrupted at any moment, ‘if the partidas know that this is Joseph Buonaparte, they will shoot him, if only to avenge the Dos de Mayo. Then there will be no ransom forthcoming – all will be divided among your followers. But if you bring us safe to the camp of Massena, who is the King’s friend, you shall have a hundred thousand napoleons, and, what you will value more, the whole plans of the Emperor for this year’s campaign, which you can take to Sir Wellesley. I warrant you he will welcome you, and if you value rank, take you back as an officer into his army!’
The Count had certainly most cunningly baited his hook. Nothing could more absolutely have suited Peter’s ambitious heart than to have the stigma of deserter removed from his name. But he felt that he must not act hastily.
‘If I bring you to the camp of Massena,’ he said, ‘what guarantee have I that you will not clear all scores by having me shot?’
‘The same I have now that you will not shoot me – the honour of a gentleman! But listen; when we reach the outskirts of the French army I shall leave the King with you. We shall arrange a meeting place, and if I fail in anything, the King is still yours to kill or to ransom. I shall bring the money, half in gold and half in orders upon Pereira of Bayonne, who is agent for my estates in Médoc.’
‘The money,’ said Peter, rather contemptuously – ‘yes, that will keep the men quiet; but the papers, the plans of campaign?’
‘Ah,’ said Count Leon, ‘I thought those would be dearer to your heart!’ And he slipped a hand over the slumbering King and from the carriage pocket drew a wallet of green leather covered with imperial bees, containing a thick sheaf of papers and parchments folded lengthways and tied with broad green ribbon. ‘I trust a Scottish gentleman!’ said the Count de Leon. ‘Keep them, and when alone assure yourself that I have told you no more than the truth.’
Peter, who was the son of an honest farmer and of his own right arm, was pleased to be called ‘a Scottish gentleman’, and though in his own country he never would be so designated, he had no idea of acting otherwise than as a gentleman.
The King, who had slept peacefully through the musketry and pistol fire, who had never heard the clatter of his departing escort, now showed signs of waking. His companion with an anxious face bent over him. He might yet spoil all. With the Buonapartes one never knew.
‘Where are we?’ said the King, starting up on one elbow and looking out at the dark figures motionless without. ‘Why are we stopping? Where is my guard? Who is this gentleman?’
The Count put a hand firmly on his Majesty’s arm.
‘We are captured, but say nothing – I have arranged a ransom with this gentleman. You are the Count de Leon, I am your son. Your guards are half-way to Madrid by this time – that is, those who did not take the road to Toledo. Turn over and pretend to go to sleep!’
His tone was so serious and pressing that the King obeyed, though he must have wished to ask a thousand questions. It was the greatest proof of courage a man could give, thus, on the mere word of a man alien in blood, to accept his fate, and Peter felt in his heart a kindling of sympathy and admiration for the best, if certainly the most irritating, of the Buonapartes.
The pre-occupation of the partida, full fed with plunder so easily obtained, enabled Peter to carry the coach of the King through the press of men quarrelling and gesticulating over the division of loot.
‘The Count of Leon going to Yuste to drink the waters,’ Peter proclaimed to all who passed him. ‘We take him for our share. His son shall pay us the ransom.’
‘He does not look worth much,’ exclaimed a Basque from across the frontier, ‘yet I seem to have seen that head somewhere.’
‘No doubt,’ quoth Peter, ‘he has great estates in your country, vineyards in the Médoc, forests of pitch pine along the étangs, grazings on the Landes – and I don’t know what all!’
‘A Frenchman, then?’
‘A good Spaniard, with excellent French gold to pay his ransom,’ snapped Peter. ‘I do not ask his birth certificate when he counts me out his loius-d’or.’
‘Good luck,’ laughed the Pole. ‘I have not so many men at my back as you, but I have three horses laden with fine things down in the glade. I must see that no one drives them off. Good fortune with your water-drinker. Bleed him well!’
At last they were clear and King Joseph was able to sit up. Peter rode by the carriage door and was witness to the strange strife within.
‘They are Spaniards, I tell you,’ argued the King. ‘I will go out and harangue them. I am their legal monarch. I have a Spanish household. I hear mass each morning at six. I eat nothing but Spanish dishes, though the oil and the garlic disagree with me. Give me my hat with the red and yellow cocarde. I wear the Spanish colours. I have only to speak to bring these men to their knees!’
‘Sire,’ said his companion, holding him in place with respectful firmness, ‘you are the Count de Leon, my father, going to Yuste to drink the waters. Till we are on the outskirts of Marshal Massena’s camp you must speak no word except to me. I have made the best arrangements possible, but all depends upon your silence and discretion.’
‘Ah, Massena!’ mourned the poor King; ‘he would do something for me, he and Suchet; Jourdain also and Hugo, though he is only a general.’
‘Sire,’ said the young man warmly, ‘I am doing more for you than all your marshals and generals put together. I am risking my head for yours, and, whatever happens, I stand to lose no inconsiderable part of my estate. All I ask is that you shall obey my instructions till I place you safe in the midst of your soldiers.’
The King folded the young man in his arms.
‘Forgive me,’ he said, ‘I am so set about with enemies that sometimes I know not friend from foe. But I have good and grateful instincts, if only my brother would not persist in making a king of me. Why could he not have left me in Naples, where the people liked me? Why will he not let me go back to Montefontaine, where at least I was happy and the cooking agreed with me?’
‘The Emperor has been extraordinarily good,’ said the Count; ‘he has left you all his best soldiers, his ablest marshals, his ‘bulls of the ring’, and he is off to Vienna himself with only his little conscripts, his name, and his big boots.’
‘You are a Spaniard, Leon,’ said Joseph, shaking his head, ‘but your soul is among your vines on the other side of the Pyrenees.’
‘It is well for your Majesty that those vineyards do stand on French soil, else where would I find the hundred thousand louis I am to pay for your ransom? Would Massena or your friend Suchet lend you such a sum even if they possessed it – aye, or Jourdain the Jacobin?’
The King was touched and again pressed the young man in his arms. He was profligate of caressings, el Rey Joseph.
‘You shall be my heir,’ he cried. ‘I leave you my throne. Marry one of Jerome’s girls. He will be glad to get them off his hands. That will give you a right to the name, and the Emperor will give his consent.’
‘God forbid!’ said the young man earnestly; ‘better Count of Leon than King of all the Spains. I would rather sit in my courtyard at Château Sainte Grace and watch the wagons roll in with the full vintage baskets than be King at Madrid, sustained by three hundred thousand foreign bayonets!’
‘Sustained by the love and confidence of my people,’ corrected Joseph; and the strange thing was that he believed it.
‘Thou, brave, honest, stupid sponge of a man!’ thought Leon as he resigned himself to await events. ‘No evil in thee, much cross-grained goodness, and of purpose as pliable as baker’s dough.’
And, indeed, had Joseph been a Spaniard he might have ruled the nation better than Ferdinand or any Spanish Bourbon had ever done. But as far as real authority went, outside the walls of his palace the least French general had more power than he. And as for the headstrong marshals, men like Soult, Murat, Ney, Victor and Massena, they rode rough shod over his orders, and laughed at his protestations.
‘But now,’ he told himself, ‘all will be different. The marshals – aye, even Soult – are to be placed under my direct orders, and I shall be King of Spain in fact as well as in name.’
After today Ney would not toss a bundle of his letters which had tumbled about in his saddle-bags for a week to his newest secretary with the insulting words, ‘See what that blunderer in Madrid wants of us now.’ And when the report was made and the King’s orders read out in full, Ney would no longer dare to ‘bid the fellow go scratch himself.’
These things the fine, soft dough-cake of a man, good as wheaten bread, has taken sorely to heart, and it was because of the constant dignified respect showed him by the Count of Leon that Joseph had chosen him for a companion.
They approached Talavera, where Massena lay entrenched, and at a convenient spot the coach was drawn by the efforts of the twenty-two and the judicious use of tracing chains as far from the highway as was necessary for security.
The King was warned that he must not call out to any passing regiments or he would be immediately shot. The Count went on to arrange with Pereira’s agent for the payment of half the agreed sum in gold. The King lay and read ‘Gil Blas’ in Spanish as a preparation for the cares of state. Down in the dell away from the road Froyla and Peter prepared the royal meals, while in the intervals of his toils the company’s cook aided them with advice and the loan of utensils. The younger men foraged for wine and firewood, while the veterans stood sentry. Everyone waited for the return of Count Leon, and in the intervals of ladling and basting Peter fingered nervously at the precious packet of documents in his breast pocket.
Peter was to meet the Count Leon down on the road near the rocky gorge where the Tagus has cut through the western Sierras. The Count was to come on alone, ahead of his train of muleteers, a white kerchief tied about his hat, and a branch of green willow in his hand.
Froyla must also go. She absolutely refused to be left behind. The danger, as represented to her, only doubled her determination, as Peter ought to have known.
‘Where thou goest I will go,’ she quoted from her favourite tale, which Peter had translated for her from the Bible his mother had given him, wherein indeed he found many things very pleasing to his wife, to her as fresh as the Morning Post of that day and date.
They waited among the pines, the two grey mules tethered behind in the blue gloom of the wood. Froyla and Peter looked into a hot pulsing furnace of sunshine, for the sun beat down furiously into the close defile of the Tagus, and the evening valley wind had not yet sprung up. They lay in the very last clump and watched the Talavera road, thrown like a pink whiplash along the side of the mountain, among the rocky ridges and self-sown green plantations.
They saw them come from afar, a band of muleteers with their mules, and before them, riding on a white mare, the Count of Leon. They counted three mule-drivers – more than enough, if they were French guardsmen, to account for Peter and Froyla, who were unarmed, according to arrangement.
But from their watch tower under the high green pines they saw the Count de Leon order his men to return, which they did, leaving him alone with the laden mules.
So Peter and Froyla went down fearlessly, and the Count of Leon paid them over the fifty thousand gold pieces, and Peter pocketed the orders for fifty thousand more to be paid by the Pereiras of Bayonne or their agents. Then Peter lit a fire of leaves and damp branches on one side of the Talavera road, while Froyla did as much on the other – which was the signal to bring down the King. So, after a little waiting they heard the noise of wheels and the voice of King Joseph bidding the outriders to make haste. He had been deserted (so he said) by those who ought to have served him best, but he had fallen among a grateful peasantry, who had shown him that the heart of Spain beat true to him. He had eaten bread with them. He had played at ‘dames’ and had been beaten. They were people of spirit, and far better and more trustworthy than any diplomat or Court lounger. He had even promised to return and teach them chess. The Count of Leon? He had forgotten all about him. He was el Rey Joseph, and had so written his name on several documents, relative to a village in Gallicia of which he had never heard, with the nobility and authority of a Charles the Fifth.
All this ambiance and largesse the Count de Leon cut short by ordering (yes, actually ordering) his Majesty back into his coach. He had parted with several years’ rental of his best patrimonial estates to keep this vantard out of the hands of the English, and it was too much to find him vapouring there, deluding himself with false hopes as he had done in his palace in Madrid, touched by the slightest politeness of a Spaniard, but taking the gravest and greatest services of his real friends as matters of course.
The band of La Giralda regained its fastnesses on the mountain side and soon made equitable division of the ransom. Peter would have left the whole of the gold to the band, reserving the more uncertain orders upon Pereira for himself. He believed that the Count would not deny his signature, but Froyla was of quite a different opinion.
‘My brothers,’ she said to the band, ‘your chief has won for you a noble ransom such as no partida has ever handled since the Tagus cut Spain in half. He and I have news which may help to repel the French, and with it we ride to the camp of my Lord Wellington, el Gran Lor. For that there is no money to be received. It is a service. So because it is possible that we may not return, we shall first divide the gold according to the rules of plunder – ten shares for the captain, three for each lieutenant, and for the band, one share each, coined money of France. During our absence Lieutenants Darros and Guardia shall have the command. They shall prevent all gambling and card-playing. The man who quarrels and draws a weapon shall be judged to lose his portion and be dismissed the band, and I counsel you to deposit your money, each in his own name, with Pereira of Bayonne, which advice you will not take, but dig a hole in the corner among your cabbage plot after the manner of your kind since the world began.’
The band grinned at the wit of the Captain’s wife. She knew them because she was of them. Neither Cardoños nor Feliçé had any faith in a Jew banker of Bayonne, even though he kept the money of two Kings and an Emperor. As she said, a hole dug hastily among the cabbage beds was their best safe deposit. The Captain, being of foreign blood, might do as he liked, and his wife might speak by his book, but not for so little could the custom of generations be changed.
Froyla and Peter passed the armies of Massena without any great difficulty, thanks to the passports and permits given them by the Count de Leon. They were an honest miller and his wife returning to their parents in the big bourg of Torres after having had their mill burnt by the partidas for supplying flour to the French.
They went forward with great care, because immediately in front of them rose the abrupt and frowning summits, the black precipices, the cyclopean masonry and innumerable towers of the first lines of Torres Vedras. When the two first saw them they loomed up purple-black against a red sunset.
‘Good God,’ exclaimed Peter, ‘I thought I knew something about fortification! I have helped to batter down enough of it, but the old Tiger-killer has fortified a mountain range!’
Peter thrilled at the sound of the English bugles ringing across the valleys under the placid yellow gold which in the moonless nights marked the lighted squares of Lisbon.
But he knew that with such papers and plans in his possession he must walk warily. Any rashness might bring him into the midst of a tumultuous foraging party, and then, as he knew well, not he but another would present these papers to my Lord Wellington.
‘We shall have to wait,’ said Peter, ‘till we see old Cut-the-Wind riding the posts himself. Then we must throw ourselves in his way.’
‘But how shall we know?’ demanded Froyla, who did not wish her husband to run any unnecessary risks.
‘Know him? Because there is no one in the least like him. Have I not seen him a hundred times – erect as a lance in his saddle, but with a head that turns slowly like a wary heron watching fish in a river shallow? He will ride a score of paces ahead of all the others, and answer the challenges himself, salute like a semaphore, ask for news of the enemy, and ride on to the next post, cheerful as an old weathercock with his yellow beak and battered comb.’
Under cover of the night they waited, Froyla and Peter. Slate-coloured clouds poured down over the ridges of Torres Vedras. The Atlantic was sending in an advance-guard of fog, billow upon billow, one overriding the other, till through every notch and pass in the long rugged line the mist began to pour down into the great valley between the English and the French lines.
‘Ah,’ said Peter in a hushed voice, ‘here they come! Close to me – so! They will let me speak before shooting, if there is a woman with me.’
‘Sir Arthur – remember Seringapatam!’
‘Damn Seringapatam – who the devil are you?’ shouted the general, checking, however, his steed, which was coming headlong upon them out of the blue scud.
Peter Blake saluted gravely.
‘I was a Company’s writer, but you made me intelligence officer, and mentioned me twice in despatches. Peter Blake is my name.’
‘Oh,’ said the General, ‘distinguished bravery’, ‘exceptional service’, fellow with a head-piece and so on? But, as I said before, what the devil are you doing here – and with a woman with you?’
‘This is my wife, Froyla,’ said Peter, his voice losing its tremor. ‘I am captain of the duly-enlisted Cardoños company–’
‘Thieves and rogues!’
‘Regularly enrolled Spanish militia from Romana’s army, and we have captured the plans of campaign sent by the Emperor from Paris for the guidance of all his marshals.’
‘Eh, what’s that? No fooling, sir. This is a hanging matter!’
‘I know, Sir Arthur – I know,’ said Peter firmly; ‘but if you will cast your eye upon this envelope you can judge for yourself. I served too long with you in the Deccan to play tricks here with my wife by my side!’
‘Hi! A lantern there – you Wear, Grant, Ponsonby!’
My Lord Wellington, an imposing figure in a dark cloak which drooped over his horse’s tail, loomed above them all. Drops of the night-dew dripped on Peter’s hand from the peak of his cocked hat as he handed up the great sealed packet with the Imperial arms framed in green and embossed upon the leather.
Wellington cast one glance at the superscription and with a brief order to an officer to continue the grand rounds, bade Colonel Grant bring Peter and Froyla to headquarters. He himself put spurs to his horse and rode back with his own personal escort as fast as if the rugged mountain track were a broad military road.
Colonel Grant was a man of many questions. He had served in India and demanded details of Peter’s doings there. On these Peter was voluble, and as the daylight came, bade Froyla show the officer her gold watch with the inscription. What Peter really wanted to ask was if the 4th Dragoons were with the force behind Torres. His life depended on that – at least until he had time to right himself with the Commander-in-Chief. But he judged it better not to refer in any way to his old regiment. After all, there might be nothing to connect him with the renegade Scoutmaster, who had been broken for drunkenness and losing despatches.
Peter, having no particular claim upon Providence, trusted to luck, which seemed to him not at all the same thing, for Peter was from Galloway, where they are strong upon the ‘eternal decrees’.
Peter and Froyla were ushered into a great barnlike building which had been whitewashed and garnished with rude benches and planks laid upon trestles.
‘The staff officers’ mess-room,’ whispered Peter, ‘there they are at the upper end.’
Peter, with Froyla a pace behind him, stopped motionless at the end of the long table. The packet had been opened, and Wellington with the great door of the barn yawning behind him, sat poring over the papers, his face no longer stern and haughty but irradiated with joy.
Peter understood very well.
Wellington had scarcely a tenth of the numbers of the enemy. He had to lead new and untried men against veterans – and such veterans – generaled by Soult, Ney, Victor, Massena, the pick of Napoleon’s ‘fighting bulls’.
But now he had their plans, and already half a dozen swift secretaries were busily copying the papers scrawled by way of signature with the hieroglyphic ‘N’ which promulgated authority.
As soon as one had been read and the contents jotted in a little pocket-book by Wellington, it was tossed across the table to be copied. The envelope had been taken in hand by an expert in seal-craft.
At last Wellington had finished, and leaning back with his hand still upon the great map of the Peninsula, the lightnings of thought seemed almost visibly to come and go under that calm high brow. Suddenly he awakened to a duty not yet done. He gathered up his notebook, some scattered papers, and the map of Spain.
‘Blake – Blake – Peter Blake – the man from India who captured these papers? Ah, there you are! Come to my private quarters. I would speak with you.’
Peter had that fear of the great general which sat cold upon every man who ever campaigned with him. No one loved Wellington as Napoleon was loved – fiercely, passionately, frantically. But every man from general to drummer boy trusted him, reverenced him, and died gladly in obeying him. The troops marched out in the dark along unknown roads into the face of a foe infinitely superior.
‘We do not know where we are going,’ they said, ‘but he knows.’
When he rode along the battle-front, cloaked and cockhatted, his plume bedraggled and his head turning restlessly, there was no irresistible gust of cheering such as ran along the lines before the Emperor, as it were the wind of his coming.
On the contrary, a hush fell on regiment after regiment as it dressed itself proudly in line of battle, eyes right, alignment impeccable, feet among the corpses of comrades.
So much to explain why Peter the Bold followed trembling as Colonel Grant ushered him into the presence.
Wellington’s quarters were in a cottage outside the little village of Valle, called Valle de Mauro on the maps. Two rooms – no more – one with a table strewn with maps and papers, had several chairs set about the walls, but no other furniture except a great eight-foot clock with a vast circular belly, behind the glass of which went to and fro the father of all pendulums, a shining brass disk swinging to its triple cordage of copper wire with a gleam like the full moon seen through the brumous mists of autumn. On the other side, a room with bare walls, a small gilded Virgin and child in the corner, and a folding camp-bed of the simplest sort, over the end of which hung the Commander-in-Chief’s great blue cloak with the silver chain and clasp.
‘I think,’ said Wellington, ‘the lady had better retire.’
‘I beg your Excellency to let her stay. She does not understand English – and – we have just been married. You will pardon her. She would think something was going to happen to me!’
Wellington made a little tolerant gesture. Froyla curtsied gratefully, whereupon the tall general rose and bowed in his most stately fashion.
‘You have rendered us a great service,’ he said, ‘the value of which depends on how you came by these papers, and whether they can be restored to their owners without any suspicion of having come under my eye.’
Peter recounted the tale of the capture of King Joseph and the bargain he had made with the Count of Leon.
Wellington nodded his head.
‘Very good – very good,’ he repeated. ‘What should we have done with King Joseph? He is better in the camp of Massena, setting the marshals by the ears. Who taught you strategy, Mr Peter Blake?’
‘I had the honour of serving two years under Sir Arthur Wellesley,’ said Peter readily.
‘Then you are a countryman of my own, and have kissed the Blarney Stone?’
‘I am from Scotland, your Excellency,’ said Peter.
‘Then you left that country early in life. I never yet knew the Scotsman who had the manners of a pickaxe –though in spite of occasional insubordination, you make admirable officers, but not what one might call boon companions! Now what do you want for all this? Speak out, man – we are alone!’
‘I ask,’ said Peter with some difficulty of utterance, ‘for my old place as Intelligence Officer. I think I can serve you well. I am the head of a Spanish village. I have twenty-two excellent spies under my orders, men of the country, accustomed to disguises, men who can go anywhere. I can reach the French councils through the Count de Leon, who wishes the marshals safe across the Pyrenees for the sake of his vineyards at Medoc.’
‘Ah, yes,’ said the General. ‘Château Leon is a fine sound wine. I drink it myself; but can you get the packet back to him safely and, as it were, unopened?’
‘If your Excellency will overlook the past,’ said Peter mournfully. ‘I am no deserter, but some years ago I fell behind General Moore’s march. I was carrying dispatches and… forgot myself in the wine vaults of Bembibre. But I made up for that by taking the French artillery in flank at Corunna and tumbling their pieces over the precipice.’
‘I have heard of that,’ said Wellington grimly, ‘but I always thought it was the work of a rascal scoutmaster of the 4th Dragoons!’
‘I am that rascal!’ said Peter, hanging his head.
‘You never came to claim any reward, though Frazer and Baird both put your service in their dispatches.’
‘Nevertheless I duly reported myself to Sir David,’ said Peter.
‘And what did he say?’
‘He bade me go to the devil for a renegade and called my meddling with the French guns a damned impertinence!’
‘He would – he would!’ said Wellington relishingly. ‘So now you want a fresh start, and nothing will do you but a commission–’
‘And a staff uniform,’ said Peter. ‘I left my old one in India.’
‘Help yourself,’ said Wellington ironically. ‘Perhaps you would like my cloak and cocked hat!’
‘No, your Excellency,’ said Peter, ‘but when I meet the Count of Leon I must have some visible authority to treat.’
‘You shall have an acting commission as Intelligence Officer – and by gad, sir, Grant is about your size and as spick and span as the devil. Grant – I say, Grant.’
Peter quitted the lines of Torres Vedras in full staff colonel’s uniform, his commission in his pocket, and in his breast, to be remitted to the Count de Leon, the reconstituted packet of the Imperial papers, not one wanting, every seal intact, and the golden bees on their green ground untarnished in the corner.
King Joseph Buonaparte was a proud man when he rode out of Madrid amid the cheers of a rabble to whom his steward distributed largesse, and the staider salutations of comfortable citizens, who wished for nothing so much as peace in which to fatten their money-bags. For the French, if they plundered the North, spent their money in Madrid like water.
‘I have them at last,’ he murmured, tapping the pocket of the green uniform he wore in imitation of his brother. ‘Generals and marshals. Now they shall take the word from me. I have the Emperor’s written orders. The Generalissimo is King Joseph – moi el Rey!’
The young man in the carriage with him pretended not to hear, not because he feared to be indiscreet but because he had heard nothing else ever since leaving Paris.
‘Count Leon,’ the King repeated, ‘this time Marshal Massena shall not flout me. I have that here, as you know, which will bring even Soult to his knees!’
‘It is indeed to be hoped so most fervently,’ said the young secretary courteously.
‘We need not hope for what we have,’ exclaimed his Majesty, suddenly losing patience. ‘Do you see that – his Imperial Highness’s hand from beginning to end – the supreme direction of the central army, whoever is in command, and of the other armies whenever I am in their several provinces – Bessières to be treated as he deserves, Jourdain to be put in his place, Béliard on the retired list, my establishment to be doubled, twice as much money to be paid in monthly – that is what we have gained by going to Paris!’
‘Your majesty speaks no more than truth! There is nothing like seeing the Emperor face to face.’
‘Ah, he knows my value, old Joseph! He has an affection for me, the little Napoleon. Many a beating I saved him from because I was our mother’s favourite. And he does not forget, nor yet the crowns I sent him at Brienne. He cannot do without me; whenever there is a hard nut to crack, it is ‘Where is Joseph – Joseph, my brother? He conquered Naples for me and put down Fra Diavolo. He will pick Spain out of the fire and put it on my plate.’ And so I should have done long ago, had it not been for those wretched quarrelling marshals. But now they have a head and that head is … the King!’
Count Leon smiled to himself. What Napoleon could scarcely manage with all the reins of Government and prestige in his hands was wholly beyond the power of his good, easy brother. But though all save Joseph’s Spanish adventurers knew the truth, it was judged wisest to let him find out for himself.
Count Manuel de Leon was no adventurer, but a man of wide possessions. Only, as he sometimes smilingly agreed, Fortune had dealt hardly with his patriotism in placing the most valuable of these among the vineyards of Médoc. He was, therefore, a Spaniard by race and training, but compelled to pass for a well-wisher of the French because of his vast holdings in that country. Yet he had become the friend and confidential adviser of King Joseph, as much from pity and a curious personal liking as anything.
At Vilalba, the first village on the route to Medina del Campo, King Joseph, who loved not the saddle, descended and took his place in the comfortable carriage which was to convey him to his armies. Count Leon would far rather have remained where he was, but his business being to accompany his King, he was compelled to give up his white alezan with the sweeping tail and shut himself up in the great padded interior of the King’s state coach.
They were accompanied only by a small personal escort, because Joseph had sent on ahead the five thousand horsemen who had come with him from France. The Tagus road was counted the safest in Spain. Details of troops traversed it at all hours. Every two leagues a military post had been established. The towns were fortresses, strongly held by the French, or by his own favourite Spanish army, the ‘Josephists’, composed of Madrillenes and such partisans of his great lords as could be gathered together – an army which manœuvred well enough on the Prado or on the plain beneath the royal palace, but which would certainly desert en masse to the enemy at the first battle.
But this was a thing also mercifully hidden from the King, who knew that the exiled Ferdinand was no great ‘Ferdinandist’ and that he contented himself very well in France, where nobody worried him, and he had his wife to himself. So Joseph Buonaparte imagined that a little showing of favour to Spaniards and a good deal of bickering with the marshals would win him favour with the Spanish people.
But in spite of his best intentions, his kindest thoughts and endeavours, the open favouritism he showed to all things Spanish, he still remained the intruder, the alien, the ‘Outlander’.
King Joseph had given the honour of escorting him to a battalion of the Royal Palace Guards, which had ridden all the way to the frontier with him, where they had so distinguished themselves by their magnificent apparel of scarlet and gold that Ney’s veterans, scoffing openly, had called them the Tambour Majors. They carried indeed so much gold lace that they were popularly believed to be proof against ordinary pistol bullets, and even musketry fire if at all oblique.
No doubt the Tambour Majors were individually gallant men. Indeed, many of them proved it afterwards from Vimiera to the walls of Toulouse. But as they jogged along under the stars, the chill wind of the Sierras sweeping out the Tagus valley, and the flaws of rain whisking and snatching at their cloaks, it is perhaps small wonder that they gazed with no friendly feelings at the sleeping figure of the ‘Outlander’ monarch whom they had sworn to protect, extended on the cunningly devised couch within.
Which may explain the fact why, when at the great bend of the river east of Talavera, where the thick wood called Peñada Grande makes a green darkness across the road, at the first shout of ‘Mina, Mina’, the household troops set spurs to their horses and rode as hard as they could back to Madrid with tidings of terrible disaster.
It was Peter who opened the carriage door, pistol in hand, demanding instant surrender. Peter it was who, with his faithful Giralda command, surrounded and defended the carriage. The rest of the partida hurled itself upon the convoy of rich meats for the royal table, valuable arms, badges of orders, swords of honour, and all the paraphernalia of luxury and comfort with which it behoved the brother of Napoleon to travel through the ‘loyal’ parts of his own dominions.
The Count de Leon was under no misapprehension as to what had happened. He knew where the royal guards would go to, and the tale that they would spread when they got there.
But he was ready for Peter when that bold leader opened the coach door. He pointed to the figure of the slumbering King clearly discernible under the light of the lamp which burned above his head.
‘My father,’ he said in pure Castilian,‘he has Mina’s pass to go to his country house as Yuste.’
‘Hum,’ said Peter extracting a gold piece from his waistcoat pocket and presenting the image and superscription of ‘Joseph, King of Spain’.
‘I was not aware that they coined money with your father’s picture!’
Count Leon took his defeat well.
‘Send back your men a little and we shall talk. You are not Spanish? No? English, I think?’
‘I am from Scotland, which though poorer, is the better kingdom.’
Peter waved a hand for his men to fall back out of earshot. He was the man of the Treasure, and they trusted him fully. He would arrange about the ransom. The old man looked rich and the young one promising. They would trust their leader. Was he not Froyla’s husband? His future – indeed all his interests – were theirs. Let these noisy brutes roar and drink, kindle fires and dance the jota. They were of the breed of La Giralda, and their chief would act for them in all things as was fitting.
‘My friend,’ said Count Leon, speaking rapidly as one who may be interrupted at any moment, ‘if the partidas know that this is Joseph Buonaparte, they will shoot him, if only to avenge the Dos de Mayo. Then there will be no ransom forthcoming – all will be divided among your followers. But if you bring us safe to the camp of Massena, who is the King’s friend, you shall have a hundred thousand napoleons, and, what you will value more, the whole plans of the Emperor for this year’s campaign, which you can take to Sir Wellesley. I warrant you he will welcome you, and if you value rank, take you back as an officer into his army!’
The Count had certainly most cunningly baited his hook. Nothing could more absolutely have suited Peter’s ambitious heart than to have the stigma of deserter removed from his name. But he felt that he must not act hastily.
‘If I bring you to the camp of Massena,’ he said, ‘what guarantee have I that you will not clear all scores by having me shot?’
‘The same I have now that you will not shoot me – the honour of a gentleman! But listen; when we reach the outskirts of the French army I shall leave the King with you. We shall arrange a meeting place, and if I fail in anything, the King is still yours to kill or to ransom. I shall bring the money, half in gold and half in orders upon Pereira of Bayonne, who is agent for my estates in Médoc.’
‘The money,’ said Peter, rather contemptuously – ‘yes, that will keep the men quiet; but the papers, the plans of campaign?’
‘Ah,’ said Count Leon, ‘I thought those would be dearer to your heart!’ And he slipped a hand over the slumbering King and from the carriage pocket drew a wallet of green leather covered with imperial bees, containing a thick sheaf of papers and parchments folded lengthways and tied with broad green ribbon. ‘I trust a Scottish gentleman!’ said the Count de Leon. ‘Keep them, and when alone assure yourself that I have told you no more than the truth.’
Peter, who was the son of an honest farmer and of his own right arm, was pleased to be called ‘a Scottish gentleman’, and though in his own country he never would be so designated, he had no idea of acting otherwise than as a gentleman.
The King, who had slept peacefully through the musketry and pistol fire, who had never heard the clatter of his departing escort, now showed signs of waking. His companion with an anxious face bent over him. He might yet spoil all. With the Buonapartes one never knew.
‘Where are we?’ said the King, starting up on one elbow and looking out at the dark figures motionless without. ‘Why are we stopping? Where is my guard? Who is this gentleman?’
The Count put a hand firmly on his Majesty’s arm.
‘We are captured, but say nothing – I have arranged a ransom with this gentleman. You are the Count de Leon, I am your son. Your guards are half-way to Madrid by this time – that is, those who did not take the road to Toledo. Turn over and pretend to go to sleep!’
His tone was so serious and pressing that the King obeyed, though he must have wished to ask a thousand questions. It was the greatest proof of courage a man could give, thus, on the mere word of a man alien in blood, to accept his fate, and Peter felt in his heart a kindling of sympathy and admiration for the best, if certainly the most irritating, of the Buonapartes.
The pre-occupation of the partida, full fed with plunder so easily obtained, enabled Peter to carry the coach of the King through the press of men quarrelling and gesticulating over the division of loot.
‘The Count of Leon going to Yuste to drink the waters,’ Peter proclaimed to all who passed him. ‘We take him for our share. His son shall pay us the ransom.’
‘He does not look worth much,’ exclaimed a Basque from across the frontier, ‘yet I seem to have seen that head somewhere.’
‘No doubt,’ quoth Peter, ‘he has great estates in your country, vineyards in the Médoc, forests of pitch pine along the étangs, grazings on the Landes – and I don’t know what all!’
‘A Frenchman, then?’
‘A good Spaniard, with excellent French gold to pay his ransom,’ snapped Peter. ‘I do not ask his birth certificate when he counts me out his loius-d’or.’
‘Good luck,’ laughed the Pole. ‘I have not so many men at my back as you, but I have three horses laden with fine things down in the glade. I must see that no one drives them off. Good fortune with your water-drinker. Bleed him well!’
At last they were clear and King Joseph was able to sit up. Peter rode by the carriage door and was witness to the strange strife within.
‘They are Spaniards, I tell you,’ argued the King. ‘I will go out and harangue them. I am their legal monarch. I have a Spanish household. I hear mass each morning at six. I eat nothing but Spanish dishes, though the oil and the garlic disagree with me. Give me my hat with the red and yellow cocarde. I wear the Spanish colours. I have only to speak to bring these men to their knees!’
‘Sire,’ said his companion, holding him in place with respectful firmness, ‘you are the Count de Leon, my father, going to Yuste to drink the waters. Till we are on the outskirts of Marshal Massena’s camp you must speak no word except to me. I have made the best arrangements possible, but all depends upon your silence and discretion.’
‘Ah, Massena!’ mourned the poor King; ‘he would do something for me, he and Suchet; Jourdain also and Hugo, though he is only a general.’
‘Sire,’ said the young man warmly, ‘I am doing more for you than all your marshals and generals put together. I am risking my head for yours, and, whatever happens, I stand to lose no inconsiderable part of my estate. All I ask is that you shall obey my instructions till I place you safe in the midst of your soldiers.’
The King folded the young man in his arms.
‘Forgive me,’ he said, ‘I am so set about with enemies that sometimes I know not friend from foe. But I have good and grateful instincts, if only my brother would not persist in making a king of me. Why could he not have left me in Naples, where the people liked me? Why will he not let me go back to Montefontaine, where at least I was happy and the cooking agreed with me?’
‘The Emperor has been extraordinarily good,’ said the Count; ‘he has left you all his best soldiers, his ablest marshals, his ‘bulls of the ring’, and he is off to Vienna himself with only his little conscripts, his name, and his big boots.’
‘You are a Spaniard, Leon,’ said Joseph, shaking his head, ‘but your soul is among your vines on the other side of the Pyrenees.’
‘It is well for your Majesty that those vineyards do stand on French soil, else where would I find the hundred thousand louis I am to pay for your ransom? Would Massena or your friend Suchet lend you such a sum even if they possessed it – aye, or Jourdain the Jacobin?’
The King was touched and again pressed the young man in his arms. He was profligate of caressings, el Rey Joseph.
‘You shall be my heir,’ he cried. ‘I leave you my throne. Marry one of Jerome’s girls. He will be glad to get them off his hands. That will give you a right to the name, and the Emperor will give his consent.’
‘God forbid!’ said the young man earnestly; ‘better Count of Leon than King of all the Spains. I would rather sit in my courtyard at Château Sainte Grace and watch the wagons roll in with the full vintage baskets than be King at Madrid, sustained by three hundred thousand foreign bayonets!’
‘Sustained by the love and confidence of my people,’ corrected Joseph; and the strange thing was that he believed it.
‘Thou, brave, honest, stupid sponge of a man!’ thought Leon as he resigned himself to await events. ‘No evil in thee, much cross-grained goodness, and of purpose as pliable as baker’s dough.’
And, indeed, had Joseph been a Spaniard he might have ruled the nation better than Ferdinand or any Spanish Bourbon had ever done. But as far as real authority went, outside the walls of his palace the least French general had more power than he. And as for the headstrong marshals, men like Soult, Murat, Ney, Victor and Massena, they rode rough shod over his orders, and laughed at his protestations.
‘But now,’ he told himself, ‘all will be different. The marshals – aye, even Soult – are to be placed under my direct orders, and I shall be King of Spain in fact as well as in name.’
After today Ney would not toss a bundle of his letters which had tumbled about in his saddle-bags for a week to his newest secretary with the insulting words, ‘See what that blunderer in Madrid wants of us now.’ And when the report was made and the King’s orders read out in full, Ney would no longer dare to ‘bid the fellow go scratch himself.’
These things the fine, soft dough-cake of a man, good as wheaten bread, has taken sorely to heart, and it was because of the constant dignified respect showed him by the Count of Leon that Joseph had chosen him for a companion.
They approached Talavera, where Massena lay entrenched, and at a convenient spot the coach was drawn by the efforts of the twenty-two and the judicious use of tracing chains as far from the highway as was necessary for security.
The King was warned that he must not call out to any passing regiments or he would be immediately shot. The Count went on to arrange with Pereira’s agent for the payment of half the agreed sum in gold. The King lay and read ‘Gil Blas’ in Spanish as a preparation for the cares of state. Down in the dell away from the road Froyla and Peter prepared the royal meals, while in the intervals of his toils the company’s cook aided them with advice and the loan of utensils. The younger men foraged for wine and firewood, while the veterans stood sentry. Everyone waited for the return of Count Leon, and in the intervals of ladling and basting Peter fingered nervously at the precious packet of documents in his breast pocket.
Peter was to meet the Count Leon down on the road near the rocky gorge where the Tagus has cut through the western Sierras. The Count was to come on alone, ahead of his train of muleteers, a white kerchief tied about his hat, and a branch of green willow in his hand.
Froyla must also go. She absolutely refused to be left behind. The danger, as represented to her, only doubled her determination, as Peter ought to have known.
‘Where thou goest I will go,’ she quoted from her favourite tale, which Peter had translated for her from the Bible his mother had given him, wherein indeed he found many things very pleasing to his wife, to her as fresh as the Morning Post of that day and date.
They waited among the pines, the two grey mules tethered behind in the blue gloom of the wood. Froyla and Peter looked into a hot pulsing furnace of sunshine, for the sun beat down furiously into the close defile of the Tagus, and the evening valley wind had not yet sprung up. They lay in the very last clump and watched the Talavera road, thrown like a pink whiplash along the side of the mountain, among the rocky ridges and self-sown green plantations.
They saw them come from afar, a band of muleteers with their mules, and before them, riding on a white mare, the Count of Leon. They counted three mule-drivers – more than enough, if they were French guardsmen, to account for Peter and Froyla, who were unarmed, according to arrangement.
But from their watch tower under the high green pines they saw the Count de Leon order his men to return, which they did, leaving him alone with the laden mules.
So Peter and Froyla went down fearlessly, and the Count of Leon paid them over the fifty thousand gold pieces, and Peter pocketed the orders for fifty thousand more to be paid by the Pereiras of Bayonne or their agents. Then Peter lit a fire of leaves and damp branches on one side of the Talavera road, while Froyla did as much on the other – which was the signal to bring down the King. So, after a little waiting they heard the noise of wheels and the voice of King Joseph bidding the outriders to make haste. He had been deserted (so he said) by those who ought to have served him best, but he had fallen among a grateful peasantry, who had shown him that the heart of Spain beat true to him. He had eaten bread with them. He had played at ‘dames’ and had been beaten. They were people of spirit, and far better and more trustworthy than any diplomat or Court lounger. He had even promised to return and teach them chess. The Count of Leon? He had forgotten all about him. He was el Rey Joseph, and had so written his name on several documents, relative to a village in Gallicia of which he had never heard, with the nobility and authority of a Charles the Fifth.
All this ambiance and largesse the Count de Leon cut short by ordering (yes, actually ordering) his Majesty back into his coach. He had parted with several years’ rental of his best patrimonial estates to keep this vantard out of the hands of the English, and it was too much to find him vapouring there, deluding himself with false hopes as he had done in his palace in Madrid, touched by the slightest politeness of a Spaniard, but taking the gravest and greatest services of his real friends as matters of course.
The band of La Giralda regained its fastnesses on the mountain side and soon made equitable division of the ransom. Peter would have left the whole of the gold to the band, reserving the more uncertain orders upon Pereira for himself. He believed that the Count would not deny his signature, but Froyla was of quite a different opinion.
‘My brothers,’ she said to the band, ‘your chief has won for you a noble ransom such as no partida has ever handled since the Tagus cut Spain in half. He and I have news which may help to repel the French, and with it we ride to the camp of my Lord Wellington, el Gran Lor. For that there is no money to be received. It is a service. So because it is possible that we may not return, we shall first divide the gold according to the rules of plunder – ten shares for the captain, three for each lieutenant, and for the band, one share each, coined money of France. During our absence Lieutenants Darros and Guardia shall have the command. They shall prevent all gambling and card-playing. The man who quarrels and draws a weapon shall be judged to lose his portion and be dismissed the band, and I counsel you to deposit your money, each in his own name, with Pereira of Bayonne, which advice you will not take, but dig a hole in the corner among your cabbage plot after the manner of your kind since the world began.’
The band grinned at the wit of the Captain’s wife. She knew them because she was of them. Neither Cardoños nor Feliçé had any faith in a Jew banker of Bayonne, even though he kept the money of two Kings and an Emperor. As she said, a hole dug hastily among the cabbage beds was their best safe deposit. The Captain, being of foreign blood, might do as he liked, and his wife might speak by his book, but not for so little could the custom of generations be changed.
Froyla and Peter passed the armies of Massena without any great difficulty, thanks to the passports and permits given them by the Count de Leon. They were an honest miller and his wife returning to their parents in the big bourg of Torres after having had their mill burnt by the partidas for supplying flour to the French.
They went forward with great care, because immediately in front of them rose the abrupt and frowning summits, the black precipices, the cyclopean masonry and innumerable towers of the first lines of Torres Vedras. When the two first saw them they loomed up purple-black against a red sunset.
‘Good God,’ exclaimed Peter, ‘I thought I knew something about fortification! I have helped to batter down enough of it, but the old Tiger-killer has fortified a mountain range!’
Peter thrilled at the sound of the English bugles ringing across the valleys under the placid yellow gold which in the moonless nights marked the lighted squares of Lisbon.
But he knew that with such papers and plans in his possession he must walk warily. Any rashness might bring him into the midst of a tumultuous foraging party, and then, as he knew well, not he but another would present these papers to my Lord Wellington.
‘We shall have to wait,’ said Peter, ‘till we see old Cut-the-Wind riding the posts himself. Then we must throw ourselves in his way.’
‘But how shall we know?’ demanded Froyla, who did not wish her husband to run any unnecessary risks.
‘Know him? Because there is no one in the least like him. Have I not seen him a hundred times – erect as a lance in his saddle, but with a head that turns slowly like a wary heron watching fish in a river shallow? He will ride a score of paces ahead of all the others, and answer the challenges himself, salute like a semaphore, ask for news of the enemy, and ride on to the next post, cheerful as an old weathercock with his yellow beak and battered comb.’
Under cover of the night they waited, Froyla and Peter. Slate-coloured clouds poured down over the ridges of Torres Vedras. The Atlantic was sending in an advance-guard of fog, billow upon billow, one overriding the other, till through every notch and pass in the long rugged line the mist began to pour down into the great valley between the English and the French lines.
‘Ah,’ said Peter in a hushed voice, ‘here they come! Close to me – so! They will let me speak before shooting, if there is a woman with me.’
‘Sir Arthur – remember Seringapatam!’
‘Damn Seringapatam – who the devil are you?’ shouted the general, checking, however, his steed, which was coming headlong upon them out of the blue scud.
Peter Blake saluted gravely.
‘I was a Company’s writer, but you made me intelligence officer, and mentioned me twice in despatches. Peter Blake is my name.’
‘Oh,’ said the General, ‘distinguished bravery’, ‘exceptional service’, fellow with a head-piece and so on? But, as I said before, what the devil are you doing here – and with a woman with you?’
‘This is my wife, Froyla,’ said Peter, his voice losing its tremor. ‘I am captain of the duly-enlisted Cardoños company–’
‘Thieves and rogues!’
‘Regularly enrolled Spanish militia from Romana’s army, and we have captured the plans of campaign sent by the Emperor from Paris for the guidance of all his marshals.’
‘Eh, what’s that? No fooling, sir. This is a hanging matter!’
‘I know, Sir Arthur – I know,’ said Peter firmly; ‘but if you will cast your eye upon this envelope you can judge for yourself. I served too long with you in the Deccan to play tricks here with my wife by my side!’
‘Hi! A lantern there – you Wear, Grant, Ponsonby!’
My Lord Wellington, an imposing figure in a dark cloak which drooped over his horse’s tail, loomed above them all. Drops of the night-dew dripped on Peter’s hand from the peak of his cocked hat as he handed up the great sealed packet with the Imperial arms framed in green and embossed upon the leather.
Wellington cast one glance at the superscription and with a brief order to an officer to continue the grand rounds, bade Colonel Grant bring Peter and Froyla to headquarters. He himself put spurs to his horse and rode back with his own personal escort as fast as if the rugged mountain track were a broad military road.
Colonel Grant was a man of many questions. He had served in India and demanded details of Peter’s doings there. On these Peter was voluble, and as the daylight came, bade Froyla show the officer her gold watch with the inscription. What Peter really wanted to ask was if the 4th Dragoons were with the force behind Torres. His life depended on that – at least until he had time to right himself with the Commander-in-Chief. But he judged it better not to refer in any way to his old regiment. After all, there might be nothing to connect him with the renegade Scoutmaster, who had been broken for drunkenness and losing despatches.
Peter, having no particular claim upon Providence, trusted to luck, which seemed to him not at all the same thing, for Peter was from Galloway, where they are strong upon the ‘eternal decrees’.
Peter and Froyla were ushered into a great barnlike building which had been whitewashed and garnished with rude benches and planks laid upon trestles.
‘The staff officers’ mess-room,’ whispered Peter, ‘there they are at the upper end.’
Peter, with Froyla a pace behind him, stopped motionless at the end of the long table. The packet had been opened, and Wellington with the great door of the barn yawning behind him, sat poring over the papers, his face no longer stern and haughty but irradiated with joy.
Peter understood very well.
Wellington had scarcely a tenth of the numbers of the enemy. He had to lead new and untried men against veterans – and such veterans – generaled by Soult, Ney, Victor, Massena, the pick of Napoleon’s ‘fighting bulls’.
But now he had their plans, and already half a dozen swift secretaries were busily copying the papers scrawled by way of signature with the hieroglyphic ‘N’ which promulgated authority.
As soon as one had been read and the contents jotted in a little pocket-book by Wellington, it was tossed across the table to be copied. The envelope had been taken in hand by an expert in seal-craft.
At last Wellington had finished, and leaning back with his hand still upon the great map of the Peninsula, the lightnings of thought seemed almost visibly to come and go under that calm high brow. Suddenly he awakened to a duty not yet done. He gathered up his notebook, some scattered papers, and the map of Spain.
‘Blake – Blake – Peter Blake – the man from India who captured these papers? Ah, there you are! Come to my private quarters. I would speak with you.’
Peter had that fear of the great general which sat cold upon every man who ever campaigned with him. No one loved Wellington as Napoleon was loved – fiercely, passionately, frantically. But every man from general to drummer boy trusted him, reverenced him, and died gladly in obeying him. The troops marched out in the dark along unknown roads into the face of a foe infinitely superior.
‘We do not know where we are going,’ they said, ‘but he knows.’
When he rode along the battle-front, cloaked and cockhatted, his plume bedraggled and his head turning restlessly, there was no irresistible gust of cheering such as ran along the lines before the Emperor, as it were the wind of his coming.
On the contrary, a hush fell on regiment after regiment as it dressed itself proudly in line of battle, eyes right, alignment impeccable, feet among the corpses of comrades.
So much to explain why Peter the Bold followed trembling as Colonel Grant ushered him into the presence.
Wellington’s quarters were in a cottage outside the little village of Valle, called Valle de Mauro on the maps. Two rooms – no more – one with a table strewn with maps and papers, had several chairs set about the walls, but no other furniture except a great eight-foot clock with a vast circular belly, behind the glass of which went to and fro the father of all pendulums, a shining brass disk swinging to its triple cordage of copper wire with a gleam like the full moon seen through the brumous mists of autumn. On the other side, a room with bare walls, a small gilded Virgin and child in the corner, and a folding camp-bed of the simplest sort, over the end of which hung the Commander-in-Chief’s great blue cloak with the silver chain and clasp.
‘I think,’ said Wellington, ‘the lady had better retire.’
‘I beg your Excellency to let her stay. She does not understand English – and – we have just been married. You will pardon her. She would think something was going to happen to me!’
Wellington made a little tolerant gesture. Froyla curtsied gratefully, whereupon the tall general rose and bowed in his most stately fashion.
‘You have rendered us a great service,’ he said, ‘the value of which depends on how you came by these papers, and whether they can be restored to their owners without any suspicion of having come under my eye.’
Peter recounted the tale of the capture of King Joseph and the bargain he had made with the Count of Leon.
Wellington nodded his head.
‘Very good – very good,’ he repeated. ‘What should we have done with King Joseph? He is better in the camp of Massena, setting the marshals by the ears. Who taught you strategy, Mr Peter Blake?’
‘I had the honour of serving two years under Sir Arthur Wellesley,’ said Peter readily.
‘Then you are a countryman of my own, and have kissed the Blarney Stone?’
‘I am from Scotland, your Excellency,’ said Peter.
‘Then you left that country early in life. I never yet knew the Scotsman who had the manners of a pickaxe –though in spite of occasional insubordination, you make admirable officers, but not what one might call boon companions! Now what do you want for all this? Speak out, man – we are alone!’
‘I ask,’ said Peter with some difficulty of utterance, ‘for my old place as Intelligence Officer. I think I can serve you well. I am the head of a Spanish village. I have twenty-two excellent spies under my orders, men of the country, accustomed to disguises, men who can go anywhere. I can reach the French councils through the Count de Leon, who wishes the marshals safe across the Pyrenees for the sake of his vineyards at Medoc.’
‘Ah, yes,’ said the General. ‘Château Leon is a fine sound wine. I drink it myself; but can you get the packet back to him safely and, as it were, unopened?’
‘If your Excellency will overlook the past,’ said Peter mournfully. ‘I am no deserter, but some years ago I fell behind General Moore’s march. I was carrying dispatches and… forgot myself in the wine vaults of Bembibre. But I made up for that by taking the French artillery in flank at Corunna and tumbling their pieces over the precipice.’
‘I have heard of that,’ said Wellington grimly, ‘but I always thought it was the work of a rascal scoutmaster of the 4th Dragoons!’
‘I am that rascal!’ said Peter, hanging his head.
‘You never came to claim any reward, though Frazer and Baird both put your service in their dispatches.’
‘Nevertheless I duly reported myself to Sir David,’ said Peter.
‘And what did he say?’
‘He bade me go to the devil for a renegade and called my meddling with the French guns a damned impertinence!’
‘He would – he would!’ said Wellington relishingly. ‘So now you want a fresh start, and nothing will do you but a commission–’
‘And a staff uniform,’ said Peter. ‘I left my old one in India.’
‘Help yourself,’ said Wellington ironically. ‘Perhaps you would like my cloak and cocked hat!’
‘No, your Excellency,’ said Peter, ‘but when I meet the Count of Leon I must have some visible authority to treat.’
‘You shall have an acting commission as Intelligence Officer – and by gad, sir, Grant is about your size and as spick and span as the devil. Grant – I say, Grant.’
Peter quitted the lines of Torres Vedras in full staff colonel’s uniform, his commission in his pocket, and in his breast, to be remitted to the Count de Leon, the reconstituted packet of the Imperial papers, not one wanting, every seal intact, and the golden bees on their green ground untarnished in the corner.
About the Author
S. R. Crockett was born in Balmaghie, Galloway, in 1859 and died in France on April 16th, 1914. During his life, he had over 60 novels published (many of them serialised) and hundreds of short stories/sketches appeared in the popular magazines. He was one of Scotland’s bestselling and best known authors in his day, but now is barely known of. To commemorate the 100th anniversary of his death, The Galloway Raiders has been set up and a major collection of 32 of his Galloway-based fictional works has been republished by Ayton Publishing Limited.
To find out more about S. R. Crockett, you can join The Galloway Raiders for FREE at www.gallowayraiders.co.uk
To find out more about S. R. Crockett, you can join The Galloway Raiders for FREE at www.gallowayraiders.co.uk