How Hervey prayed that it would be so! It was not merely the thought of Colonel Norris’s delight in his predicament; if the news reached Lisbon it would then reach London, and he had seen enough in his eighteen years’ service to know that bold tactics that were not successful were never admitted as bold, only reckless. He called the guard, outside, and asked in Spanish if he might be allowed writing paper and a pen.
It was an hour before his door reopened. Hervey was surprised to see the physician returned.
‘Monsieur, the authorities have consented to the return of your necessaries.’ The physician placed a valise on the table. ‘And to writing paper and ink.’
The guard placed these on the table, and three steel pens.
Hervey searched at once for his Prayer Book; the other items could be easily replaced.
‘And I have brought you this,’ continued the physician, giving him a small but new-looking volume. ‘I should not apologize for bringing you Holy Scripture, monsieur, but I wish there had been something more in English in our library.’
Hervey was unsure as to which library the physician referred, but he was grateful enough. He wondered, indeed, if the ‘authorities’, Spanish or Portuguese, found it expedient to use this medical man as go-between. ‘Monsieur, you are very kind. The letter you brought me is from Elvas. I would write by way of acknowledgement and assurance that I am well treated. I believe the authorities could have no objection?’
The physician shook his head slightly, sufficient to indicate his own agreement with Hervey’s proposition. ‘I will represent that to the authorities, monsieur.’
Hervey took careful note of the physician’s choice of words. The anonymity of ‘authorities’, repeated, was too convenient to be mere chance; there was evasion here. The physician had told him that the Spaniards had made much on his arrival at Badajoz of not being able to take him at his word: he might be a mercenary, an adventurer, a renegade – and of any nationality. There were formalities to go through to establish his credentials. That, at least, was what they had claimed.
The physician appeared to hesitate. ‘Monsieur, I have it on good authority . . . that is to say, I believe that if you were to give your parole, the authorities would conduct you without delay to England.’
Hervey did not doubt it. He had expected as much, though perhaps not quite so soon. If he gave his parole he would be taken to Madrid, likely as not, and there given over to the British ambassador, who would arrange for his transport northwards into France, to the consul in Bordeaux, perhaps, and thence to England by claret boat – a long journey, with plenty of opportunity to contemplate his situation, an age in which to imagine the opprobrium awaiting him at the Horse Guards, the Duke of York incandescent. And there would be no opportunity to redeem himself in arms against the Miguelistas if a British army were sent to Portugal, for those would be the terms of parole. No, it was insupportable.
‘You are very good, monsieur,’ he replied, and with a trace of a smile. ‘But I am not at liberty to give my parole.’
The physician looked pained. Hervey could not imagine why.
‘Then I wish you good day, monsieur,’ said the physician, with (thought Hervey) the merest touch of sadness. ‘When you have written your letter please give it to the guard, unsealed. He will know what to do.’
Hervey bowed. ‘I am obliged, monsieur.’
The physician hesitated again. ‘Monsieur, my name is Sanchez.’
Hervey bowed again. ‘Doctor Sanchez.’
How might a man escape Badajoz? Not by force of arms, reckoned Hervey. When he contemplated that night in April 1812, three whole divisions of the most determined men hurling themselves against the walls of this place, any such thought was absurd. It had taken three sieges and the lives of more men than the army could rightly spare to break in to Badajoz. The Duke of Wellington had not had Joshua’s spies, and in the end it had all been done in the old way – with brave men’s breasts. There was nothing new under the sun: a soldier appropriated the methods of his forebears, adapting them as circumstances and means changed, but if science and ruses failed, there was but one way left to fight! Joshua had been lucky. His spies had almost been discovered. Only Rahab the prostitute had saved them, hiding them in her house. And what luck there had been in that, for her house was upon the town wall, and she dwelt upon the wall. Could there be such a woman in Badajoz, to let him down by a cord through the window, as Rahab had let down Joshua’s men? Even if there was, how would he find her? Joshua’s spies had entered the city before the siege, to speak with whom they pleased. How might he meet with anyone but his jailers?
No; it was for Dom Mateo to find a Rahab. All he, Hervey, could do was communicate with him, so that when the time came they would be of the same mind. He might of course take every opportunity for exercise, for then he could spy things out, but he must have a care not to shackle himself thereby, perhaps unwitting, by any local parole, as Joshua had with the men of Gibeon. He must judge it finely. One thing was certain, however: he must escape this place. There could be no question of exchange, or even of unconditional release if it meant the Spaniards handing him over formally to the authorities in Lisbon. That way lay humiliation, and military oblivion thereafter. How long did he have? Days rather than weeks, for sure. Did Dom Mateo comprehend this too?
He opened his Prayer Book, turning routinely to the psalms appointed for the twentieth day, as had been his practice all those years ago. Psalm 102, Domine exaudi: it spoke his supplication perfectly, if only he had the faith. Hear my prayer, O Lord: and let my crying come unto thee. Hide not thy face from me in the time of my trouble: incline thine ear unto me when I call; O hear me, and that right soon . . .
How aptly did God speak to him! What sound principle it had been all those years ago to read the psalms, day by day, as long as darkness or the enemy permitted. It had been a sustaining regimen, not mere duty, and even now, after all the late years of indifference, it could sustain (and, he imagined ruefully, it could keep him from trouble in the first place).
But Domine exaudi did not comfort: it spoke of his days ‘consumed away like smoke’, his heart ‘smitten down and withered like grass: so that I forget to eat my bread’; he was ‘become like a pelican in the wilderness: and like an owl that is in the desert’; his ‘enemies revile me all the day long’. The words rebuked him as if from his father’s pulpit: out of the heaven did the Lord behold the earth;That he might hear the mournings of such as are in captivity . . .
He closed the book, very decidedly. In Badajoz there could be no mournings, only the resolve to escape – and quickly.
CHAPTER THREE
PLANTING THE STANDARD
Belem, Lisbon, 23 December 1826
Three days later, the frigate Pyramus, thirty-six guns, dropped anchor in the Tagus, as so many of His Britannic Majesty’s ships had during the late war with Bonaparte, and hands began swinging out her boats. Smoke from the royal salute hung about her gun deck still as Lieutenant-General Sir William Henry Clinton MP, commanding the expeditionary force to His Most Faithful Majesty’s Kingdom of Portugal, descended from the quarterdeck to the gangway on the port side and thence to the barge which would take him and his staff ashore.