02 - Keane's Challenge (14 page)

At length, one of the peasants, a short, swarthy man with a red handkerchief tied around his head, heard the jangle of harness and the whinny of the horses, impatient to move ahead. He turned, and as he did so, saw the uniforms and the horsemen and, after a moment, began to shout.

But it was not the welcome that Keane had expected. It was clearly intended as a warning. Other men turned, and soon the whole place was in uproar. Keane signalled to the column to halt and draw arms and Sanchez looked at him, his easy manner transformed into an expression of alarm. He called to the troopers to keep their ranks and Keane shouted back to von Cramm to have his men do the same.

Sanchez looked anxious. ‘There’s something wrong here, captain.
Something very wrong. These men are afraid of us, but we are meant to be their friends?’

The crowd was fleeing now, as fast as it could go, running away from the column of horsemen in all directions. Men too drunk to run fell to the ground in the rush. Not just men were here, but women and children too. They streamed past the troopers and down the street back into the village, darting into houses, closing the doors behind them. Within what seemed like seconds the
plaza de fiesta
was cleared, save for two dogs fighting over a chicken bone and three men, one unconscious and two too drunk to get up. But there was something else left behind as well.

On the far side of the clearing, in the direction towards which the spectators had been facing, stood six trees, laid out in a neat row. And tied by ropes to four of them were the bodies of four men.

Silver saw them first. ‘Christ almighty! What’s that?’

Keane and Sanchez spurred across the plaza towards the trees, followed by the others. Keane leapt from the saddle and ran up to the men. Their uniforms, although covered in blood, let him know that his fears had been well founded. Three of the men were the German hussars and the fourth was Israel Leech.

He went to Leech first and lifted his head. The man’s eyes were open though glazed over and he was breathing, just.

Keane spoke to him, gently. ‘Leech, you’re all right, man. You’re still alive. You’ll be fine. We’ll get you out of here.’

He turned and yelled. ‘Archer. Over here. Quickly.’ Then, moving to one of the hussars, he felt his chest and then lifted his chin, but the man was dead. Like Leech his face was a mass of cuts and gashes, and his body too, though still clothed, bore signs of violence, with deep cuts made through the serge of the
tunic and overall trousers. Keane turned to the third man, who had been similarly savaged. He too was dead, a huge, bloody hole in the side of his head where a blow had taken away part of his skull to expose his brains. He walked on to the last hussar and, raising up his head, he recoiled in horror for a moment, for one of the man’s eyes had been smashed from its socket. The hussar, though, was not yet dead.

Keane looked to Leech and saw that Archer was with him and, as Martin untied him from the tree, was trying to make him swallow some water and looking at the worst of the wounds. ‘Archer, I think this poor bugger needs you now.’

Archer left Leech for a moment in the hands of Martin and came to the hussar. He lifted his head. ‘Good God.’ The man was trying to speak, but no words came, merely a bubbling froth. Tearing a bandage from the piece of muslin he carried in his knapsack for just such a purpose, Archer tied it around the man’s head across the sightless eye and surveyed the damage.

As he did so, Ross approached Keane. ‘Who could have done this, sir? Those peasants?’

‘It would seem so, sarn’t.’

Von Cramm was with them now. He stared down at the three hussars. He said nothing at first, then just, ‘Was it really them, sir? The peasants?’

Keane nodded. ‘I can’t think of any other cause. You saw them too.’

The young officer muttered something in German, then spoke in English. ‘It’s obscene. What can we do, sir?’

Sanchez, who all the time had remained mounted with his men on the edge of the clearing, had said nothing and still he continued to hold his silence.

It was Silver who spoke next. ‘Have you seen the ground, sir? Look at it. All around them.’

Keane looked down to the dust, where the blood of the four men stained the dry earth, and saw that around each of them lay a pile of white rocks, some of them also heavily bloodstained.

‘My God,’ he said. ‘They’ve been stoned. Stoned to death. By the very people we’re trying to save.’

Sanchez, who had now dismounted, had been looking on. ‘It is just what I spoke of, captain. The peasants do not understand. To them you are just soldiers, like any others. You come and burn their crops. Ruin their living. Take away what little they have before the French come to finish the job because there is nothing here for them. So when they find soldiers, any soldiers, they do this. Who can blame them?’

Keane felt a fury and hatred whose like he could scarcely recall. He tried to speak and his voice seemed to come from deep within. ‘No, colonel. You are wrong. Quite wrong. What right do these people have? No one has the right to do this to a British soldier. We come here and try to save their land, to save them. And how do they repay us? Like this.’

He shouted to von Cramm, who had remained with his men, mounted by the opening to the clearing. ‘Cornet, have your men dismount and take their carbines. I want prisoners. Martin, Sarn’t Ross, Silver, all of you. Do the same. House to house. I want the men who did this. Failing that, I want a dozen of the villagers. And be on your guard. Shoot anyone who resists or runs away. You have my authority.’

He looked at Sanchez, whose horsemen had remained in their saddles as the hussars dismounted and drew their guns. ‘Colonel, what about your men?’

Sanchez shrugged. ‘I cannot order them. I don’t know if they
will do the same. They may not agree with you. They are farmers too, some of them. They understand these people.’

Keane shook his head. ‘Understand? What’s to understand? They’re murderers. No less. You’re mad. Quite mad to think anything else.’

Keane’s own sympathies for the peasantry had suddenly vanished. It was one thing to support their cause against Wellington’s scorched-earth policy, quite another to condone the terrible behaviour to which the ghastly scene bore witness. He called over to Ross. ‘Sarn’t, get the others back into the village and kick down the doors. Do whatever you must to bring them all out. Any you can find. Use force. I want them all in the plaza. Now. Line them up.’

Archer was attending to Leech now. They had cut down all four men from the trees and laid them on the ground.

Keane walked over to Archer. ‘The other German?’

‘Dead, sir. Loss of blood and a massive injury to the head. He couldn’t have lived. The rock dashed his brains out.’

Leech’s eyes were rolling and he was trying to speak. Archer calmed him. ‘Quiet now. No need to talk.’ He had unbuttoned the man’s tunic and Keane could see where the jagged rocks had struck home again and again. It was clear that the men had been tied to the trees for some time. Probably overnight, left out to become sport again the next day. This presumably explained the swift departure of the people in the inn. They had been impatient to get back to their victims.

He felt a passion rising in him, like a wall of red mist. A fury, pure and implacable.

The village was in uproar as the hussars, together with Keane’s men, forced their way into the houses and dragged out their occupants. Many of the villagers had fled away into the
fields, but more than two score remained. He heard firing and knew that von Cramm would have taken him at his word and shot anyone who did not come willingly. He was aware that the Germans would want revenge for what had been done to their comrades and that he had to turn a blind eye to it.

Whatever the shots had signified, within a few minutes the remaining villagers had been assembled in the plaza. They huddled together, surrounded by the hussars. There were, he noticed, mostly women, the old and the young. Most of the men had made it into the fields. Some, though, remained.

Keane shouted to Ross and von Cramm, ‘Get the men. Bring the men forward.’

Roughly, the Germans pushed their way into the crowd and dragged the men out so that they formed a line in front of the huddle. Keane counted eleven of them. They stared at him with hard, emotionless eyes. Only three of them looked away, down at the dusty ground.

Keane rested his left hand on his sword hilt and spoke to them in Portuguese, in a slow, measured tone that they might understand.

‘Tell me why you did this? Why? Why kill these men?’

There was no reply. One of the children began to whimper and a woman sobbed. He went on. ‘This is inhuman. You’re savages. All of you. Animals. No better than animals.’

He took a pace back and addressed the crowd. ‘I’m taking these men back to my general. They will stand trial for what they have done. And they will pay.’

One man walked forward. He was almost as tall as Keane and heavily built, with a muscular frame.

The man spoke. ‘You are the inhuman ones. Your English soldiers were pigs and they died like pigs. You take from us all that
we have. This is the punishment we keep for those who betray us. It is the same for a woman who betrays her husband. The stones are the people’s punishment. No one of us is the killer. We all have our say in the death. It is the only way for them to die. You’re no better than pigs. All of you.’

It was too much. Keane had stood and taken it, but suddenly the red mist rose again and what remained of his self-control disappeared. He walked towards the man and, before he or anyone else knew what he was doing, took a swing at him. The punch connected, his fist crunching home against his jaw, knocking him off his feet. The villager sat up, shook his head and rubbed his face, as the blood oozed from his bleeding lip. He spat on the ground, blood and teeth, and then pushed himself to his feet. Keane stood glowering at him, his fist still clenched. Just as Ross was walking forward to assist, without warning the man flew at Keane, headbutting him in the stomach and knocking the wind from him. Keane fell to one knee, clutching at his diaphragm as the peasant prepared to attack again. But as he did so, Keane pushed upward and deliberately raised his head, so that the top of his skull caught the man hard on the chin, smashing into the bone and knocking his head up and back. The villager reeled away holding his jaw, and Keane straightened up, still recovering from the blow to his stomach. As he regained his balance, he saw a thin sliver of silver catch the light, as the man drew a knife from his boot. Ross began to run, but it was too late. The man was on Keane now and the knife flashed upward towards his neck. But Keane had seen it coming. He moved fast and, parrying the man’s hand with his left arm, landed a huge haymaker on his right temple. It looked like a random punch, but Keane had been careful to deliver it so that the point of his knuckle struck hard into the side of the man’s head.

The man reeled from the punch, his head jerking sideways. Then he seemed to straighten up. The knife fell from his hand, clattering to the ground, and for a moment he seemed to hang in the air, his eyes, round and staring, looking into nothingness. Then his knees buckled and his body crumpled to the ground. He did not get up. Keane stood over him, blood streaming from his knuckles where it had connected and he knew that the man would not get up again.

Keane held his head. It felt as if a thousand hammers were pounding at it, but at the same time he experienced that sense of elation that only came to you when you knew you had triumphed. It was hard and basic and it was something that you didn’t speak about. It came at the kill. He looked down at the man. It was not hard to see that he was not breathing.

Silver came up and held his shoulder. ‘Bloody hell, sir. You’ve killed him. Not that he didn’t deserve it.’

Keane turned to him and spoke quietly, breathless. ‘No one deserves to die, Horatio. But sometimes your time just runs out.’

He was aware of Sanchez standing beside them.

‘Well, so, you’ve done it, captain. You have made an enemy of a nation. Your general will not thank you for it.’

Keane tried to regain his breath and faced the colonel. ‘No, Colonel Sanchez. I have simply shown these people that you do not throw our sacrifice back in our faces. And now I intend to teach them another lesson.’

Sanchez looked alarmed. ‘What? What are you going to do now? Kill the rest of them?’

Keane wiped a gobbet of blood and spittle from his face. He turned to Ross. ‘Sarn’t Ross, arrest ten men.’

‘Sir. Yes, sir, and then?’

‘You tie them up, good and hard, so they can’t move. And
then you find a wagon. And you put them in the wagon. We’re taking them back to Celorico to be tried for murder. Fair and square.’ He looked down at the dead villager. ‘I’ve done my bit. And more. I’ve avenged the poor bloody Germans and Leech. That’s enough killing for one day, isn’t it?’

Yes, he thought, I’ve avenged one of them, and I’ve behaved as badly as the peasants themselves. He wished that he had been able to keep his head, to exercise some self-control. But when the red mist came upon him, there was nothing to be done.

Sanchez stared at him and at length, as Keane was adjusting his uniform, he spoke. ‘I’m surprised at you, captain.’

‘Really, why?’

‘You seemed to me to be the model of an English officer. A real gentleman. And now you turn on a man and kill him with your bare hands. I’m impressed, of course. But also I am appalled. Where is your decorum? Where are your famous rules and regulations? Where is your honour?’

Keane stared at him. ‘You mistake me, colonel. I have never claimed to be an English gentleman. I am an Irish gentleman and I learned my trade the hard way. I was taught to fight back home as a boy and I honed my skills on the battlefields of Europe and Egypt and in the cathouses of Dublin and Londonderry. That’s how much of a gentleman I am. I have honour. I’m steeped in the stuff. Honour and loyalty and rules. And I’ll tell you something, colonel, no one does that to one of my men. And no one talks about my men like that. No one.’