02 - Keane's Challenge (2 page)

Will Martin, Keane’s fellow countryman, a farmer’s boy from County Down, rode up fast and, grabbing hold of the courier, together with the reins of his horse, managed somehow to manoeuvre both of them with him slowly up into the cover of the pines.

Turning back to rejoin the rest of his men, Keane saw that, while two of them were busy dispatching two of the dragoons, the others had disengaged. From the direction of the hussars, the French were streaming past them now, apparently oblivious to their presence in their flight, eager only to escape from the deadly men in blue who had accounted for so many of their comrades.

Some two dozen of the cavalry fled along the road, pursued by a few of the hussars, their blood up. Others had gone already and the ground lay littered with the bodies of the rest. Perhaps a dozen of the Germans lay on the road while others sat in their saddles, clutching at their wounds. But it was clear who had had the best of the fight.

He scanned the dead for signs of the chocolate-brown, black fur-trimmed coat, which was the unique uniform of his own men, and thanked God that he could see none. Then, raising his hand in command, he shouted towards those closest to him, ‘Guides, to me. Follow me.’

He led the way uphill, towards where they had begun, in the cover of the pines on the hillside. The French officer had
regained consciousness and was sitting with his back to a tree, his head in his hands, watched over by Martin. Keane looked around him, eager to see that all his men had returned safely. He turned to Ross. ‘Sarn’t Ross, what’s our state?’

‘Good, sir. No losses. Heredia’s taken a cut to his arm and Garland one to his back, but nothing worse.’

He looked at them as they dismounted and watched them loosen their tack and pat their horses. Heredia, the tall Portuguese cavalryman, inspected the cut on his forearm as he tied it up with a strip of torn muslin. Gilpin, the wily thief, short in stature but quick as lightning in a fight as he was in his previous profession, seemed unhurt and was laughing at his good fortune. Martin, still with an eye on the Frenchman, was wiping the blood from his sabre on a clump of grass, and Garland, the big ex-prizefighter, was removing his shirt so that another of their party could see how deep the Frenchman’s sword had cut.

Keane watched as Gabriella, the common-law wife of another of the company, took a canteen of water to the young Frenchman.

Horatio Silver had been a sailor, or so he said, serving at Trafalgar under Lord Nelson. But then he had turned thief, his sentence commuted to service with the colours in the 69th foot. Once a thief, though, thought Keane, always a thief. And so Silver had been plucked by them from the jails of Lisbon the previous year, the first recruit to Keane’s newly formed unit. Gabriella had come with him and, more than able to fight her corner, had been quickly accepted as one of the men.

The Frenchman took the canteen gratefully and Keane walked across to where he sat. He looked down at his captive. ‘
Parlezvous anglais?
’

The man nodded. ‘A little, yes.’

‘You are carrying letters.’ He pointed to the saddlebags, which lay on the ground some distance from them. ‘Who sent them?’

The Frenchman looked at him and shook his head. ‘I cannot tell you that.’

Keane nodded. He had come to have a respect for the French who carried these letters. They knew they had the most dangerous job in the Peninsula, that their life expectancy must be very low, and yet they continued to try. Most of them were young officers such as this, eager for promotion, keen to accept the danger if it meant reward. And most of them he knew would never see France again, but would die horribly and in agony, those that fell into the wrong hands, at least. This boy was one of the lucky ones and Keane would soon let him know it.

‘Captain Keane.’ The voice came from behind him.

Keane straightened up and turned and watched as the commander of the German hussars dismounted.

Captain Wilhelm von Krokenburgh was a tall man, of about the same height as Keane, with the aquiline looks of his country’s aristocracy and a thin mouth, above which grew an abundant moustache. He walked across to Keane, smiling broadly. ‘Good sport, Keane, eh?’

‘Yes, von Krokenburgh, your men certainly had a field day.’

The German laughed. ‘Did you see ’em run, Keane? The green lizards. Could have had a good deal more of them, given time.’

It was curious how the man spoke in almost an exaggeration of an English idiom, even though his accent was distinctly Teutonic. It was almost as if he needed to prove his rank and station. It betrayed, thought Keane, a certain insecurity. But then, he granted, who would not be insecure when your homeland had been overrun by the enemy and you were forced to live in exile in a foreign country?

The German hussars, or, to give them their correct title, 1st Hussars, the King’s German Legion, had been attached to Keane’s troop for a fortnight now, a necessity as the cavalry escorts to the French couriers had grown in number. They came from Hanover, formed by the exiled subjects of King George in his role as Elector of that state. The king had made them welcome in Britain, with their headquarters in Sussex, and over the seven years since their formation they had integrated with the local population, some even taking English wives. They were renowned as good fighters, ordered by a strict discipline and strengthened by a genuine hatred for the French who had taken their home. So, while von Krokenburgh might have irritated him from time to time with all his airs and graces, Keane was genuinely glad to have him and his men fighting at his side.

He knew too, even before he spoke, what the German’s reaction would now be to seeing the captive who sat before them.

‘This sprat’s of no use to us, Keane. Better he’d have been killed, eh?’

‘Not so, von Krokenburgh. You know as well as I do that he is of value to us. That is why we took him alive.’

‘Surely all we need is in those bags. Why bother with the messenger?’

‘Because the “messenger”, as you call him, is often of more value than the papers he carries, and sometimes even the papers are themselves worthless.’

Von Krokenburgh shrugged. ‘Have you looked at them yet?’

‘All in good time, von Krokenburgh.’

The German cursed. ‘As you will, Keane. But I would rather he was dead. With every dead Frenchman we grow another step closer to the liberation of my country. I wish you luck with him.
Now I must see to my men. Is your woman about? We have a few wounded.’

Keane nodded. ‘I’m sure that Gabriella – our woman, as you call her – will be happy to help when she has finished with our own wounded.’

Von Krokenburgh grunted and shrugged, then walked away towards his men.

Keane turned to the Frenchman, who was staring into the mid distance. ‘You’re a very lucky man, you know.’

The captain nodded his head. ‘Yes, I know that. Thank you. Thank God it was you and not those savages who took us. Did we lose many?’

‘It’s hard to say. Perhaps a dozen killed. More wounded. My sergeant will make a count. Most of your escort seemed happier to run away and leave you to us.’

‘They’re no fools. They think my journey is a waste of time. They don’t want to be in these mountains. No one does. Only fools would stay here to be slaughtered.’

‘Your emperor seems to want you to stay here.’

‘He has his reasons.’

‘And you. What is your reason for being here?’

‘I volunteered. I need promotion.’

‘You’re a captain. Like me. Isn’t that sufficient? You seem young enough.’

He shook his head. ‘You don’t understand, captain. In our army there are generals who are hardly older than me. In the army of the emperor there is the chance for any man to become a marshal of France. That is my dream.’

‘Some dream. You chose to gamble your life against the guerrillas.’

The man shrugged. ‘If you like.’

‘You know what they do?’

The man’s face grew pale. ‘I’ve heard.’

‘That dream must really matter to you then.’

‘When you’ve come through all we’ve come through you would understand, captain. I was born into war. It’s all that I know.’

Keane smiled at him. ‘Then we have something in common, don’t we? Captain… what did you say your name was?’

‘I didn’t, but it’s Henri. Jules Henri.’

‘So, Captain Henri, do you now suppose, as I have done you a favour in saving your life from both the guerrillas and our German friends over there, that you might find it in yourself to tell me who gave you the papers and to whom you were taking them?’

The man looked at him and Keane could see the despair and the resignation. ‘My general gave them to me.’

‘And who might he be?’ Keane knew that he might find this out by simply looking at the letters, but he wanted the boy to crack, to become his. Then who knew what other information he might give up. It was all part of the game that he had perfected while interrogating couriers over the past year.

The boy said nothing for a few moments. Keane waited, knowing what was likely to happen. Then at last the Frenchman spoke. ‘You said you had been born into war. Like me.’

‘And so I was. It seems so at least. For I have been a soldier these twenty years.’

‘And I was born twenty years ago. In the Revolution.’

Keane laughed. ‘Ah, the Revolution. That was the start of France’s trouble. And the start of all this. How many men has your country lost since then, do you suppose? In the name of liberty and then in the name of the emperor?’

The boy stared at him and said again, ‘You said that you were born to war. Where did you fight?’

Keane smiled. ‘In Alexandria, in the desert against your general Napoleon, as he was then. And in Flanders, before that. You beat us then.’ The Frenchman smiled. Keane continued. ‘But not since.’

‘Corunna. You were beaten then. We drove you into the sea.’

Keane shook his head. ‘No. We escaped across the sea. There is a difference, and now we’re back. And you are here as my guest, for as long as I can keep you safe from the guerrillas. We deal with them constantly.’

The veiled threat was not lost on the boy. Keane looked at him and saw that his spirit was beginning to break. ‘More water, Captain Henri? Or a little wine perhaps?’

The captain shook his head. ‘No. No, thank you. I truly am most grateful, captain, that you took me prisoner.’ He seemed about to say more and then looked down at his feet and said nothing for a long minute. Then he looked up and said, ‘Perhaps I will accept your offer. A little wine might be nice.’

Walking over to his horse, Keane unslung a flask from his saddlebag and returned, offering it to the captain, who, having taken a long draught, continued. ‘I am carrying papers from Marshal Massena to our army in the field. Of course you would have learned as much just by looking at them.’

‘Nevertheless, thank you for telling me. You will travel with us back to our lines. And I promise you that neither the guerrillas nor the Germans over there will harm you. You have my word, captain.’

*

They camped for the night on a plateau high above the hills. It was a place they had first found some two months ago and
Keane had marked it on his master map for future use. Mapping out the country was just one of his many tasks. The place had the advantage of being sufficiently hidden in a dip to allow the flames of their campfires to go unnoticed. Keane made sure that the French captain messed with him and his men, away from the Hanoverians.

Silver and Gabriella had cooked up a stew of sorts from rice, tomatoes and salt beef in the big Flanders kettle that she carried slung across her mule. Even Keane admitted that it didn’t taste half bad and their French prisoner seemed perfectly happy with his supper. The man had accepted some more wine with his dinner and had begun to speak volubly, as Keane had hoped he would.

There was not much of use as yet. Mostly he waffled on about his home in the Auvergne and the family he had not seen for two years, but occasionally he would drop in something that made Keane sit up: the fact that many of the animals in the artillery gun teams had become sick or the aside that Marshal Massena had a passion for peaches.

Keane encouraged it. It was just the sort of stuff that Wellington wanted. And it had been on just such a night that he had learned that Marshal Ney was moving across the Peninsula with half the French army. Another courier had spoken then, taken into confidence and in his cups. And so the boy went on and the fire crackled, and the wine flowed, although Keane was aware that while the flames would not be seen, the smoke would give them away. The last thing that he wanted was to attract the attention of an inquisitive band of guerrillas.

So he let the Frenchman prattle away and refilled his cup while the men spoke among themselves. He had ordered no
singing this night, from the Germans too, lest they be heard from far off in the stillness that hung about the mountains of the high sierra. Instead the men told stories to each other or tried to grab some sleep.

Sitting close to Keane, Sergeant Ross was midway through a story about a witch who had terrorized south-west Scotland in the seventeenth century, holding the men spellbound, as he always did. Gabriella shook her head and muttered something in Portuguese.

Martin stared at Ross. ‘Did they really have witches in the Scottish Highlands, sergeant?’

Gilpin laughed. ‘Don’t pay any heed to him, Martin. It’s all talk.’

Ross shook his head and continued. ‘Still do, boy. Just as they do where you come from, in Ireland. Brimful of witches, Ireland is. Didn’t your mother never tell you that?’

‘No, sergeant.’

‘Well, that’s what it is. Full of them. And if, like me, you had the second sight, you’d be able to tell just who might be a witch. Now take yon woman over there.’ He pointed to Gabriella, who had walked off to stir her stewpot.

‘She’s not a witch, is she?’

Ross smiled. ‘Well, laddie, what do you think? Do you think she might have a bit of the witch in her?’

Martin stared at Gabriella. ‘Do you really think so?’

Ross laughed. ‘No, laddie. She’s no witch, though she’s a magical way with a stew, wouldn’t you say?’