02 - Keane's Challenge (19 page)

It might have been taken as a veiled threat, but Foote did not respond.

‘So you’re the lucky man who’s to take over my brave boys, are you?’

‘It would seem so, Foote.’

‘You’ll find them quite unlike any men you may have commanded before. If you take my meaning. You would not call them sharp of eye or quick to respond. They move slow on orders and have a habit of falling out of line when they choose. They own no great discipline, for all my
sergente
has tried. And he has tried, believe me. What will you do with them, Keane?’

‘I have my orders. They are to destroy flour mills to keep them from the French.’

‘That’s engineers’ work. I wish you luck of it.’

‘Perhaps I can get more out of them than you have managed, Foote. What will you do now?’

‘Oh, have you not heard? I’m for a new command. Portuguese regulars. I tell you, Keane, it’ll suit me better. You really can’t beat a good professional field command and men who will do your bidding. Oh, I am sorry. I quite forgot. But you command others, do you. These two of your men?’

He pointed to Heredia and Martin.

‘Yes. Part of my command. We are a mixed force. We take our orders direct from the duke.’

‘Do you, by God? So it was he who gave you my men? He must
value you highly, Keane. Highly indeed to rob an officer of his command.’

Keane took the meaning of the comment and tried to ignore it. Heredia had dismounted and, taking his new duties seriously, had walked across to the Ordenanza and had engaged the
sergente
in conversation. The officer, a young man with an extravagant moustache, had remained aloof, smoking his cigar and looking from time to time at Keane and Foote. Keane thought that he might now approach him, but he had hardly begun to do so when Foote’s voice came again.

‘There was another man, too, apart from McIlroy. An artillery officer, as I recall. Friend of yours, from whom you could never be parted. A little unnatural, some of the men called it.’ He smiled to himself. ‘What was his name? Hollis? Collins? No, I believe it might have begun with “M”.’

‘Morris. It was Morris, Foote. Tom Morris, if you must know. And he is still my friend. And I have to say that I find your comment offensive.’

‘Still your friend? Really? Last I heard, he was off in Lisbon, having a rare old time with the ladies.’

Suddenly Keane found that he was listening more intently.

Foote went on. ‘Or should I say with one lady in particular? A young lady. Miss Blackwood to be precise. Kitty Blackwood. That was it.’

Keane felt as if someone had landed him a sinking blow in the stomach. He felt quite sick. He turned on Foote. ‘You are wrong. Quite wrong.’

‘No, I think you’ll find that I’m far from wrong. I have it on the best authority. Captain Morris is in Lisbon paying his attentions daily to Miss Blackwood.’

Keane stiffened. ‘Be careful what you say, Foote.’

Foote stared at him. ‘Why, why on earth should I do that? You have no possible claim on Miss Blackwood’s hand, do you? How could you?’ He paused. ‘In fact as I now seem to recollect, did you not fall out with her brother over some matter or other, a duel or some such, before he was killed? Damned shame he was. Should never have happened, should it? Damned fine officer.’

Keane’s blood was up. And he did not worry for more than an instant whether by some extraordinary chance Foote knew what he should not and might be alluding to the secret of Keane having killed Blackwood. Foote had gone beyond the mark. Had insulted not only the woman he loved but the man he still considered to be his best friend. He moved closer to Foote.

‘You will retract your words, sir, which damn the characters of two of my friends.’

Foote smiled at him. ‘So Miss Blackwood too is a friend of yours, as well as Captain Morris. How very interesting. But let me see. Do we think that she might be a better friend of yours than Captain Morris? I wonder. What could we possibly surmise?’

Keane flew at him. But Foote had judged his insults with a nicety and was ready for him. He sidestepped the rush and Keane connected with nothing. Foote turned and waited for Keane to turn before swinging at him. The punch caught him on the left cheek and for a moment he stopped. Then he was on Foote. A punch, his favourite right hook, went in and hit home in Foote’s abdomen. The man recoiled and then, coming out of the shock, riposted with a punch to Keane’s nose, which opened it up. The blood gushed and Keane staggered. He had forgotten that Foote had been such a good fighter. Although he did not have Keane’s instinctive, basic street instinct, his punching was stylish, as if it had been formally taught, which in fact it had. Wiping the blood off his face, his eyes stinging, Keane decided
that the time had come to get serious. He squared up to Foote as if he was in a ring. Foote naturally did the same. This was his form of fighting. But just as the dummy punches seemed to announce a new assault, Keane pulled his masterstroke and suddenly kicked his right leg out with huge force and drove his boot hard into Foote’s groin. The man collapsed to the ground in howls of pain and Keane walked across and sank a punch hard into his face. The blood gushed from his nose. It was enough for Heredia and Martin, both of whom ran across and pulled Keane off his brother officer just as he was about to send the first kick into his kidneys.

Martin spoke. ‘No, sir. Not that way. Not now. Not here.’

Keane pulled away from them, managing to free one arm, and in his fury aimed again for Foote. But he did not connect. Heredia put out his own right foot, and Keane, concentrating on the kick, tripped over it and fell sprawling to the ground. He swore and, getting up, turned on Heredia.

‘What the devil do you… ?’ Keane stopped, realizing with a start what he had been doing. And, more importantly, what he had been about to do. Breathless and bloody, he looked at Heredia. ‘Thank you. And you, Will. I’m in your debt, both of you. Stupid thing to do.’

Foote was still down, clutching at his groin, oblivious to the blood streaming from his nose. Keane walked a little distance away from him, flanked by Heredia and Martin. The men of the Ordenanza were staring as one at him, silent, shocked to see two British officers lose control and brawl in the street. A few of them, including the
sergente
, were grinning and nodding at Keane.

The Portuguese officer, still puffing at his cigar, walked towards the three men and doffed his cocked hat. ‘Sir, I have to
say that I’m a little shocked.’ He spoke, as Keane had suspected he would, in English, in the cultured tones of a scion of the nobility. Clearly this was no ordinary officer of militia. ‘I did not know that British officers did such things.’

Keane shook his head. ‘Ordinarily we do not, lieutenant. But I can only endure insults to a certain degree. I apologize for the display of lack of self-control. I should not have allowed it in front of the men.’

‘Oh, I don’t think the men minded at all. In fact, you may have done yourself a favour. They had no great love for Captain Foote and they have every respect for a man who can win his battles.’

‘It was foolish.’

‘You fight well, sir, although not strictly by the rules.’

‘Thank you. I’m not proud of it, lieutenant, but it serves a purpose.’

‘I would be happy to fight alongside you, sir.’

‘Well, it seems that you may have the opportunity ere long. James Keane, Corps of Guides. Stand your men to, if you will, Lieutenant… I’m sorry, I do not have your name.’

‘Pereira. Don Fernando Forjaz Pereira Pimentel de Menezes e Silva, Count of Feira, at your service.’

He turned and barked an order to the
sergente
, who relayed it to the men. They rose from their positions and within a few minutes were formed up in the square, looking surprisingly better, thought Keane. Meanwhile Foote too had managed to get to his feet, although his face was as white as a sheet. He stared at Keane.

‘You’re insane, Keane. I’ll have you for this, I swear.’

‘Do I take that as a challenge, Foote? If so, then I accept. Though where we shall manage it and when, I cannot conceive. I have a war to fight.’

‘You accept and then, as quickly, you refuse. You are no gentleman, Keane.’

‘I don’t think that I ever claimed to be a gentleman. But I will not be known as a cheat and I will not hear my friends slandered. Naturally I accept. Choose your place. I shall choose weapons.’

‘I shall get word to you, Keane. And then we shall meet. You have my word on it.’ He turned and found his horse, which was tethered to a ring outside the local inn.

Keane, who had cleaned up the blood on his face and shirt and was contriving to look the part of a British officer, stood before the company, flanked by Pereira and the
sergente
. Martin and Heredia fell in on the right. Keane addressed the men in his best Portuguese.

‘My name is Captain James Keane and I am your new commanding officer. You are under my command until further notice. You may wonder about my uniform. Although I am British I wear the brown of your own country as do my men. You have already met two of them. The others you will meet very soon. We work with the
partida
of Colonel Julian Sanchez and our orders are to harass the French as much and as often as we can. Lieutenant Pereira will brief you further.’

He hoped that it was enough; that they had, as Pereira had suggested, been impressed rather than repulsed by his brawling with Foote. He thought that they might gain some respect for him, and that, however long they were under his command, he would somehow manage to transmit something of his ideas of soldiering to them. It had not been a good start.

Foote rode past them. Keane ignored him, but Pereira gave him a salute, which he returned before riding on.

Keane watched him go and cursed himself again for having lost his temper. It had taken Heredia to drag him off Foote,
and he realized that their roles had been reversed since he had pulled the Portuguese trooper away from Silver in their billet.

Perhaps, he thought, Heredia had understood something. Something that had now occurred to him. The fact that this was a very different form of warfare they were pursuing. Where your friends might so quickly become your enemies, and where you began to doubt not only those about you, friend and foe alike, but at times your own actions. Not for the first time, but now perhaps with more conviction, he began to wonder whether he was really cut out for the job. It had changed him, and it occurred to him that this must surely be what had happened to Heredia and in particular to Morris. He wondered too, once again, about Foote’s accusations. And again he dismissed them from his mind.

Right or wrong, he had called out Foote, but they had no date or place set for their meeting. He remembered too that he had given his word that Heredia would fight Silver, and again the parallel struck him as ironic. Why, he wondered were they fighting among themselves, when Marshal Massena was sitting just ten miles away, outside Almeida, with one hundred thousand French troops?

He watched the Portuguese lieutenant speaking to the Ordenanza and wondered if he was aware of the task they had been given or if he believed that he would soon be leading them into battle. He had registered Pereira’s title. The young man was a count of the Portuguese nobility and undoubtedly harboured dreams of glory. But to Keane he seemed on first impressions as if he might have a little more to offer than one might expect from an indolent aristocrat.

He walked across as Pereira finished briefing the men. ‘Thank you, lieutenant. Follow me to San Pedro.’

Archer rode into Sanchez’s camp only a few minutes after their return. Keane was watching the Ordenanza filing into the village in what passed for a column of threes. They were hardly the foot guards, he thought, but they had a certain air of confidence that could not be denied. He had, he thought, misjudged their expressions on first acquaintance, and whether it had much to do with Pereira’s pep talk or his own spontaneous display of dirty street fighting, they seemed to have improved their temperament.

He counted them into the camp. Apart from Pereira and the
sergente
, who he had learnt went by the name of Dominguez, there were a hundred and forty-eight men in an understrength company. Still, they augmented his little force considerably, which now numbered his own close group of seven, since Leech’s departure, and von Krokenburgh’s seventy hussars as well as the detachment from Sanchez’s band of fifty lancers and fifty foot, most of them infantry. Sanchez’s own force was another four hundred and twenty, so given the need they could muster between them almost eight hundred men with which to meet any enemy.

Archer approached him on horseback, bearing a note.

‘The telegraph, sir. We received a message a short while ago, from Almeida. But without the code book, I was unable to translate.’

Keane nodded, took the book from his coat and gave it to Archer. The man scanned the numbers and then thumbed his way through the pages.

‘General Cox says that he is short of muskets and equipment. Some of the militia have deserted. They are waiting for Massena, sir.’

‘Aren’t we all?’ Keane shook his head. ‘It has the makings of another Ciudad.’

‘General Craufurd’s men might go to their assistance, sir.’

‘I’m afraid, Archer, that General Craufurd will have been ordered by the commander-in-chief that in the case of this happening he is to make only a show of strength. We would not want to sacrifice the Light Division, and General Wellington knows that.’

He knew that Craufurd’s men would make a stand beside the town. But he knew too that it would be short-lived and wondered what the conclusion might be. What was the Light Division against the might of a French army?

‘Keep in communication with them, Archer. Twice a day if you can. We may yet be able to buy time.’

He took back the code book and, watching as the Ordenanza were ordered by Pereira to stand easy, found Ross staring at them.

‘Ah,
sarn’t, I take it you have seen my new command?’

‘If you don’t mind my saying so, sir, they’re not quite the equal of our lads, are they?’