Soldier of the Queen (18 page)

‘It looked to me like the last pageant of the Empire, sir.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I’m not sure it was entirely a success. The Emperor looked old and some fool took a pot-shot at the Czar of Russia, which didn’t improve relationships.’

‘What about the troops?’

Colby considered. There had been a continuous stream of red and blue as the Zouaves had swung by, followed by the Guides in green and gold, the lancers with their tall schapkas and the flutter of pennons, and the Heavies in brass helmets and shining breastplates. What about them? The thing that had remained most in his mind was the acrid smell of horseflesh and the flies, the high scream of orders, the bands, the thud of kettle drums and the slow boom of guns from Mont Valérien. In the Crimea the French had seemed splendid, chiefly because the British were so awful, and nothing had pleased a British officer more than to get hold of a French frock coat in place of his brief British jacket. But that had been when the French Empire had looked good. It was beginning now to look a little aged and the glamour had begun to fade. The Emperor had got himself into trouble in Italy, and gained nothing from the Prussian defeat of the Austrians. And in Mexico, where he had set up a puppet empire with a brother of the Emperor of Austria, he had been told firmly by the Americans, whose civil war had left them one of the most powerful military nations in the world, to keep his hands off their side of the Atlantic.

He realised just what his impression had been. As the little brass guns had clanked by behind their teams and the troops had marched off in a cloud of June dust, it had occurred to him that, compared with the Americans, they seemed to belong more correctly to the empire of the first Napoleon.

He looked up. Wolseley was waiting patiently. ‘I think they looked a little out-of-date, sir,’ he said.

Wolseley studied him thoughtfully. ‘Cross the frontier?’ he asked.

‘I went down the Rhine, sir.’

‘Why?’

The answer seemed obvious. ‘To drink the wine, sir.’

Colby’s retort was inclined to be over-brisk but Wolseley seemed unperturbed. ‘See
their
troops?’ he asked.

‘Several times, sir.’

‘Impressions?’

Jesus Christ in the mountains, would it never end?’ Workman-like, sir. When they call a class up, everybody has to report. I met a professor from Heidelberg serving as a lieutenant in the reserve. It must make for clever commanding, and in a general mobilisation you’d have companies commanded by men not only of military skill but also of high intelligence. In the French army, if you’re wealthy enough you can buy yourself a stand-in, so that the ones who find themselves in uniform are merely the ones who aren’t clever enough to avoid it. That’s how it was in the North during the Civil War, sir, as you’ll recall, and their conscripts at first were dreadful.’

Wolseley sat back in his chair. Wondering what was coming, Colby waited. ‘We’re very interested in what’s happening on the Continent,’ Wolseley said at last. ‘What’s
your
opinion?’

‘Looks to me like war, sir.’

‘That’s how it looks to me,’ Wolseley agreed. ‘Though it doesn’t appear to do so to anyone else. As you probably know, the Queen made a great friend of Napoleon III.’

Colby
had
heard. The papers had been full of it at the time. Uncertain how he was supposed to reply, he kept silent.

‘She’s concerned at the situation over there,’ Wolseley went on. ‘She’s also concerned at the behaviour of the Prussians. The poor soul’s in rather a cleft stick – on one side someone she admired, on the other her relations. She’s anxious to know how things will go. Come to that, so are we, so for once we’re all in agreement. Everybody thinks the French will win if it comes to a war. I’m not so sure. Though I know everybody beats the Austrians, any nation who can do it in six weeks must be good. What do
you
feel?’

Colby remembered Von Hartmann again, with his quest for information and his supreme confidence in his own country’s military system. ‘I think the Prussians have better ideas, sir,’ he tried cautiously.

‘That’s my opinion, too. And I suspect it will eventually dawn on the taxpayer of this country that our army’s as far behind that of the French as I suspect
they
are behind the army of Prussia. I want you to pay another visit.’

Colby’s eyebrows shot up, his bad temper forgotten. This was luck if you liked! Just when he was growing bored, too!

‘Which country, sir?’

‘Both.’

Better and better!

‘You’re one of the few men who ought to be able to get along with both sides. We’re all out-of-date here and the cavalry in particular has to find a new role, because defensive weapons like the rifle and the breach-loading cannon revolutionised the war in America. I want you to go and report on what you see.’

‘As a military observer, sir?’

‘Unofficial. It’s the Secretary for War’s wish, because he feels there’s much we might learn which will aid his reforms. But there are no funds for such jauntings, so you won’t be getting any special expenses. We can hardly appoint military observers until the war starts, anyway, and if it’s over as quickly as the ones against the Austrians and the Danes, they’ll not arrive before peace is signed. You reported on the American war for the
Morning Advertiser
, I think. Perhaps you should go and see them again.’

‘Suppose they have their own man, sir?’

‘I think they won’t. I’ve seen the editor.’

Typical of the army, Colby thought. Trying to avoid responsibility and expense.

Wolseley was speaking again. ‘What you do for the
Morning Advertiser
will be your own affair,’ he said. ‘
I
want to know about the French army. I hope you understand.’

Paris was different from at any time Colby could ever remember. The streets were boiling cauldrons of humanity and so packed with traffic it was impossible to cross them without picking your way through the piles of horse dung. Tartan trousers seemed to be the vogue, he noticed with a critical eye, and toppers had grown taller, while women were still wearing those damn silly crinolines.

The crossing from Dover had been calm and the train from Calais comfortable. The suburban stations were full of bustle, with groups of workmen in blue blouses, officials in pince-nez and imperials, and squads of soldiers in red trousers and snowy gaiters. Brosy had been right. There
was
something about Paris, even if it were only an air of alertness, zest and prosperity.

Leaving his hotel in the Rue Jacob, dressed by Ackroyd to within an inch of his life, Colby pushed through the mob until he found a fiacre.

‘Circulez
,’ he said. ‘Just drive around.’

This, he thought, was a job in a million, and he stared about him, his eyes bright, a half-smile on his face, aware of that curious excitement that being on the Continent and especially in Paris brought in him. Black against the yellow of the evening sky, he could see the great arch built to commemorate the first Napoleon’s triumphs standing at the top of the Champs Elysées on the outskirts of the city.

At the other end of the avenue, the chilly dignity was lost in the casualness of narrow streets and café-concerts. Down there, under the opal globes of the gas lamps, the bars and cafés were doing a roaring trade, most of their customers outside on the pavement in the heat, the young men carrying their jackets over their arms, the girls all wasp waists and follow-me-young-man ribbons, and as much gauze from the waist upwards as they could get away with.

Following Colby’s directions, the cab driver circled the Arc de Triomphe and began the descent among cabs and buses acrid with the smell of the stable. The house where they stopped was new and elegant, flat-fronted with a semi-circular porch supported by pillars at the top of a short flight of steps, its forecourt circled by railings. Hearing Colby’s accent, the manservant who answered the door was not inclined to allow him to step inside. Pushing him back, Colby handed over his hat and gloves.

‘And now, please,’ he said. ‘Announce me to the Baronne.’

As the manservant placed the cloak, hat, stick and gloves on a table in the hall and turned sullenly away, Colby barked at him.
‘Et vîte, si vous tenez à la vie!’

It was a phrase he had learned from one of Love’s French troopers and, coming unexpectedly from a foreigner, it made the manservant move for the staircase a great deal faster.

Germaine de Maël was in her boudoir, in a peignoir of white lace. There was a great deal of bosom showing but somehow it managed to be discreet. Madame de Maël had been brought up in a noble but impoverished family and knew exactly what was correct, which was why the salon she ran attracted brains, wit and intelligence as well as lovers.

‘Colbee,’ she said softly. ‘This is a delight! We must have champagne. It is so much better at this hour than your uncivilised English tea.’

‘Where have you been for so long?’ she went on as the maid poured the drink into flutes. ‘I was devastated when you returned to your silly soldiering. Are you yet married?’

‘No.’ Colby regarded her with warmth and affection. She was a beautiful, highly-intelligent woman, none too trustworthy but far from ruthless. ‘Are you?’

She shrugged. ‘No. But I am growing old. Soon I must settle down.’

‘There’s a man?’

‘Mais, oui!
Always. A woman can survive without love but never without lovers. His name is Narcisse and he’s the Baron de Polignac.’

‘Old régime?’

She made another face and smiled. ‘Empire creation.’

‘Doesn’t even impress the servants.’

She shrugged. ‘Like you, he’s a soldier. At the moment, he is in Paris but he’s been ordered to Metz, close to the frontier.’

‘When are you going to marry him?’

‘Marriage?’ She pulled a face. ‘There’s nothing like that. He wishes to be my protector and I am happy with the arrangement. This way, I spend
his
money instead of mine. Tomorrow, I am holding a ball. You must come. Have you an English lady friend you can bring? Or are they like Englishmen – all silent and stiff and surrounded by dogs? And why are you in Paris?’

If she had a lover on the staff of the French army, Colby decided, it would be as well to be discreet. ‘I came to ask you to dine.’

‘I should like that. We shall be seen and then Narcisse is bound to find out, and that will make him jealous. After all, nobody owns me and I recall with pleasure our previous meetings. You have, I remember, such lovely legs.’

It wasn’t difficult to find out about the French army. High-spirited, vain and intelligent, the Parisians were more than willing to talk about it and every boulevardier was certain that Prussia was the enemy. Yet, beneath the confidence, there was also a disturbing sense of anxiety. There seemed to be no plan to counter the Prussians and, above all, no method at the top. According to reports, Napoleon III was an invalid, his generals were not considered competent, and the Empress was cordially disliked for her interference in affairs. It seemed to add up to disaster and Colby didn’t hesitate to say so in the report he wrote for London.

‘What do
you
think of it, Tyas?’ he asked.

Ackroyd paused in polishing a pair of boots to consider. ‘Too many bloody buttons, sir,’ he said.

Colby grinned. There was a lot of sense in Ackroyd’s views and he had enough experience to know what he was talking about. The army was splendid and clearly adored by the crowds for whom its bands crashed out martial music all day in the streets. Spurs and sabres clanked on the pavements and uniforms filled the squares with bouquets of colour. But like its theme music,
Partant Pour La Syrie
, a gay melody that was almost a dance-tune, it had a comic opera touch about it that didn’t always seem real. Grenadiers in towering bearskins, rugged-cheeked veterans with bemedalled breasts; voltigeurs in gilded shakoes; Zouaves like part of the French flag with their blue capotes, red trousers and white gaiters; dragoons in tiger-skin helmets; hussars with pale blue pelisses; Lancers of the Guard in white tunics; and Chasseurs in olive – they were everywhere, every colour of the rainbow. Napoleon I had been well aware how to make a man proud to be a soldier and his nephew had resurrected his colour schemes. The snowy breeches, jackboots, gaudy tunics, banners, pennants and guidons, and the acres of musicians crashing out military tunes were everywhere with the tossing surf of manes, glaring eyeballs and foam-flecked flanks of the cavalry. It was magnificent but Colby had a feeling it was all suspect. And certainly the conscripts were not impressive. Since the poor from the cities tended to be unhealthy, most of them seemed to be peasants.

‘Not noted for initiative,’ he was informed cheerfully, ‘but at least they’re politically reliable.’

By the simple procedure of talking to the officers from the Prince Eugène Barracks whom he met in bars, he learned that the strength of the army was a hundred thousand less than the number the Prussians could muster if it came to a war, and that there were only sixty thousand on the reserve, while the Germans had a vast mass of trained men. The Mobile Guards, supposed to be the second line of defence, consisted, it seemed, only of names on paper, and there was a lot of resentment among the men caught for conscription about also being caught for the reserve.

It made a harsh report and the British ambassador, who was charged with sending it in his diplomatic bag, didn’t agree with it. Nor apparently did anyone else.

‘You are the only man who has this to say about the French army,’ Wolseley informed him.

The night of Germaine de Maël’s ball was hotter and more sultry than ever and there seemed to be an increased excitement on the boulevards because over the last few days the talk of war in the bars had grown louder.

Bands of students and workmen were patrolling the streets, singing patriotic and revolutionary songs like ‘The Marseillaise.’ In front of the Prince Eugène Barracks, a great demonstration was being held, and thousands of workmen had gathered from the adjacent faubourgs to witness the departure of a regiment for the frontier. There was a great deal of drinking going on and much cheering, singing and fraternisation, more crowds in the Boulevard Montmartre, and several thousand people parading up and down the Place Vendôme with shouts of
‘Vive Napoléon!’