‘Not at all, my dear fellow. I’ll keep well out of your way.’
‘We’ll rig something for you in the gunroom, then. They’re always ready to welcome a new face.’
The gunroom found him amiable and courteous and quite able to tell them everything they wanted to know of the decisive victory, a raconteur who would be missed when things settled.
Just two days later, however, a galloper from Dalrymple’s headquarters brought a blunt summons: in view of certain developments, the services of Colonel Packwood were required forthwith.
The ensign was interrogated on just what developments had occurred that demanded the presence of their obliging guest.
‘Why, gentlemen – you haven’t heard?’ the young man teased.
What he said shattered the calm of the morning. ‘The Frog chief, Dupont, has given it away. He’s asked for terms!’
The commander of all French forces in Portugal, the trusted instrument of Napoleon Bonaparte, asking for surrender terms before the campaign had been under way more than a dog-watch?
The ensign concluded, ‘So, Colonel, sir, you’re asked to return and be part of a council-of-war as will try to fathom what’s to do. They’re all to be in on it, the navy as well.’
Packwood took horse immediately, with a solemn promise to let them know what was happening, and Tyger was left to digest the extraordinary news.
‘It’s a trick, of course,’ Bray rumbled dismissively. ‘Can’t understand why they’re not hot-foot on the road to lay siege to Lisbon instead o’ wasting time, the sluggards.’
Kydd shook his head in confusion. That the whole of Portugal was to be relinquished as a consequence of a single battle made no sense, but then again, a capitulation was a definitive act that could not be reversed.
‘Simple,’ offered Brice. ‘They’re playing for time. Spin it out over weeks, gives them the chance to whistle for help and they’re ready for a return fight.’
‘So we’re to swing about our anchor until things get hot again,’ Bowden said glumly. ‘Shocking waste of a fine ship and prime crew.’
Astonishingly Packwood was back within two days. ‘Gentlemen. I shall tell you my tidings, but only on the back of a muzzler as shall steady me.’
This was more extraordinary than before. An armistice was now in force. Not only was Dupont going to follow through without delay on his seeking of terms but these were to cover the yielding up of the country as a whole: the two sides would meet in conclave at a national convention in the magnificent medieval city of Cintra to determine the fate of Portugal and its French occupiers.
Appreciative of a gunroom dinner after army field victuals, the colonel tried to answer the obvious question: why was Dupont conceding so much for so little?
‘The best kind of general does not spy out the field and look for his advantage,’ he explained. ‘Instead he gets inside the head of his opponent and sees it through his eyes.’
‘So this is what the generals are doing?’
‘I didn’t say that. No, sir, this is my reckoning of Dupont’s motives.’ He took another grateful sip of his claret. ‘When the risings began in Spain they fanned out quickly to Portugal and he found himself spread all too thinly about the country. The natives rose up in general, not at one place, which made it impossible for him to put it down. This threw him on the defensive and he did what he could – told his field commanders to contract their boundaries around strongholds into local concentrations of force.’
The naval officers tried to nod wisely.
‘A reasonable thing, you’d say. But not in this instance. The French in Portugal have been brutal and forceful in their occupation and the people have learned to hate them. As a result the areas between these force concentrations are impassable to Dupont’s military communications on account of assassinations and similar. And you know what that means.’
‘Er, do elaborate for us unlearned sailor-men, please.’
‘Why, first, he has no knowledge of what is going on in his field of operations. This is insupportable for him, as he no longer knows which of his concentrations is in trouble, and which ones he can call on to help the other. Next, he has no intelligence of the enemy – the insurgent armies springing into life around him that threaten to overwhelm these concentrations. Worse, he’s not in a position to supply them with victuals, let alone powder and shot. They are therefore inevitably lost to him. To these woes add the finaclass="underline" that, thanks to their ownership of the sea, the British are landing in strength at unknown points in his domain and might be expected at any moment to seize the capital. What should he do?’
He had complete attention as he went on, ‘He can have no hope of succour from Spain – after Bailen their forces there are under the same adversities and therefore he can entertain no prospect of relief. Good sirs, his only course now is to lay down his arms on the best terms he can get at this time.’
‘So that’s why … And what do you conceive these will be?’ Kydd asked.
‘With our forces swelling daily, undoubtedly he’ll be held to an unconditional surrender. Nothing less.’
As it sank in, there was a collective sigh of incredulity.
‘It’s high tide, then, for Mr Bonaparte,’ Kydd said slowly. ‘And then it’s Spain and …’
‘Yes.’
‘Can I ask it – the cause removed, will you return to your regiment, Colonel?’
‘The circumstances being as they are, I feel I must. Shortly there’ll be motions made towards Spain, as you’ve fancied. I have desire to be at the head of my men when that happens. And may I ask it of you to keep the fortunes of war of the Thirty-sixth of Foot, the Herefords, which is to say the “Saucy Greens” always to the fore in your gatherings?’
Kydd stood immediately. ‘Gentlemen, do raise your glasses! To His Majesty’s Thirty-sixth Regiment, the Saucy Greens, and all who serve in it.’
The colonel coloured with pleasure. ‘And might I be allowed to propose a toast to the health and prosperity of the captain and crew of HMS Tyger, as being her success at arms is patently assured?’
They saw off their colonel in fine style and, in accordance with orders, followed the army south to lay off the coast, Cintra not more than five miles inland on the heights overlooking Lisbon.
Impressively, most of the fleet was present, Conqueror prominent with her rear admiral’s pennant. Kydd remembered Packwood mentioning that the navy would be represented and this would include Rowley. Not that he would have much to do, the initiatives lying with the army.
In thrall to the moment, Tyger awaited events.
Chapter 54
Gunter’s Tea Shop, London
‘Disgraceful! I’d never have believed it – even of a Dalrymple, my dear!’ Lady Leveson-Gower sniffed in mortification, other patrons of the fashionable establishment pausing in their conversations at the words so strongly expressed by the formidably attired woman. ‘A convention, no less, with Bonaparte’s horrid functionaries, and so demeaning it makes my blood run cold.
‘Here we have the French, in defeat for the first time at our arms, and before the gaze of the world, they are allowed to keep their colours, their honours of war – even their arms. But what is worse in my eyes, which will stir even the most lost to honour in this land, is that fully at the expense of England the whole French Army is to be conveyed back to their homeland, with all their baggage and foul plunder, ready to take up arms against us once more!’
‘Yes, Harriet,’ Millicent Nugent replied patiently, for with her friend’s husband high in the Foreign Office she could be trusted to know more of the suddenly notorious convention than most.
Lady Leveson-Gower glared at her, as though it were all her doing. ‘Spencer is quite beside himself with vexation, the poor dear. The military principals forgot themselves even to the omitting of sending word of their negotiating until after it was signed and all too late to change.