'You've played a pretty trick on me, and I suppose driving out to Greenwich could be termed going to the country. My departure, though, is hardly an emergency. But no matter. I am overjoyed to see you.'
She returned his smile. 'Nothing would have deterred me from bidding you farewell. But this is an emergency. At least I thought it so, knowing you to be about to cut off your nose to spite your face.'
He gave her a puzzled look. 'What mean you? I fail to understand.'
Droopy had led Susan aside; so, as Georgina took Roger's arm and led him towards her coach, he guessed that his friend must be in on this little plot, whatever it might be. On reaching her coach, Georgina pulled open the door, stepped back and gave Roger a swift push which sent him sprawling on the step, with his head inside the coach.
The interior was in semi-darkness but, after a second, he realised that the female figure sitting back in the far corner was Mary. It struck him at once that the women had thought up this trick to stop him, at the last moment, from going to Spain.
Mary leaned forward and spoke in a trembling voice, 'Roger, dear love, I am truly repentant for the unhappiness I caused Georgina and Susan. They have both forgiven me, and...'
'And laid this trap in an effort to make me change my mind about leaving England,' he cut in angrily.
She shook her head. 'No, not that. We know that none of us could change your stubborn mind. Dear Georgina brought me here only that I might beg your forgiveness too, before you depart.'
'Ah, that's a very different matter,' he exclaimed joyfully. 'And I am truly glad she did so. But, Mary, it is I who should ask forgiveness. It was only out of love that you tried to stop me, and I should not have held it against you. I am ashamed now to have treated you so brutally these past few days. I should not be long in Spain. With luck I'll be away only a few weeks, and on my return we will resume our happy life together.'
Three-quarters of an hour later, Droopy and the three ladies, all of whom he loved so dearly, waved him away from the jetty, and he went aboard Pompey.
Captain Durrant proved a pleasant, youngish man and, Pompey being his first command, he showed Roger over the ship with pride. Roger had realised that the advance of Wellington's army during the present campaign would make it unnecessary to go all the way down to Lisbon and had expected to be landed at Corunna; but Captain Durrant told him tiiat Bilbao had recently been liberated, and it was to that port they were bound, thus shortening Roger's land journey across northern Spain by several days.
So far it had not been a particularly good summer, but the weather had improved during the past week, and it was a sunny afternoon when Pompey dropped down the Thames.
For the next few days the sky remained almost cloudless, and the sea calm, so for once Roger was not sick when crossing the Bay of Biscay. On the 29th, they entered Bilbao harbour and when he went ashore the heat was grilling. On enquiring of a passing British officer, he learned that General Graham had set up his headquarters in the castle, so he had himself driven there in a carrozza and sent up his name.
Graham, Sir Thomas Picton and General Hill were the Duke's principal commanders, and Roger had met them all in Lisbon in the days when the British Army had been entrenched behind the lines of Torres Vedras, so the General received him as an old acquaintance.
Roger made no mention of Charles to him, but simply that he had to go to the Duke's headquarters, and would be grateful for facilities to do so. Graham readily agreed to provide him with a horse, and an escort of Dragoons as a precaution against his being attacked by French deserters, hundreds of whom were hiding in the mountains. He then offered Roger accommodation in the castle for the night, and said he would look forward to seeing him at dinner.
Over the meal Roger learnt from Graham and his Staff officers the events that had led up to Wellington's decisive victory five weeks earlier at Vittoria.
In the first place, two ill-judged decisions by Napoleon had helped to make it possible. Encouraged by the successes of their compatriots in other parts of Spain the guerrillas in Biscay, Navarre and Aragon had greatly increased their numbers and redoubled their efforts. Under their Chief, Mina, they became such a serious threat to the French army's line of communications that the Emperor had allotted forty thousand men, under the command of General Clausel—who had brilliantly saved Marshal Marmont's army from total destruction after he had been seriously wounded at Salamanca—to clear northern Spain of these great bands of fanatical patriots. This had resulted in weakening the main army of King Joseph to a point which, at last, gave Wellington superiority in numbers.
Napoleon's other blunder had been to recall the Duke's most efficient opponent, Marshal Soult, leaving as the King's senior adviser the elderly and ailing Marshal Jourdan—whose sole claim to fame was a General of the Revolution at the Battle of Fleurus where the enemy, when attacking up a hill and being met by a heavy cannonade, had panicked.
But it was the Duke's clever strategy that had been the main cause of this outstanding victory. He had led the French to believe that Braganza and not Ciudad Rodrigo was his base and that he meant to attempt to outflank their left wing, whereas he had pushed Graham's corps up along the coast on their right. Owing to the country there being very mountainous, Jourdan had thought such a move unlikely and detailed only light forces to hold it. Time after time they had been pushed back, necessitating withdrawals, by the outflanked main army. The British had advanced five hundred miles in six weeks, until Jourdan had felt compelled to make a stand on the Zadorra river.
Marshal Suchet, who commanded the other main army in Spain, could not come to Jourdan's assistance as he had all he could do to hold down Catalonia and prevent the advance of a British force under General Sir John Murray that had landed, in Valencia, from Sicily; neither could General Clausel, as the King had recalled him from the north too late.
As the battle was joined, Graham had again driven back the French right and succeeded in cutting off their retreat by the great highway leading to San Sebastian and Bayonne. Meanwhile, Picton and Hill had forced the French centre and left to fall back on the Zadorra and the town of Vittoria. Once the French were broken they had no way of escape except through the town, then along a narrow, mountainous road that led to Pamplona. Under the bombardment of the British guns, the town had become a shambles and the retreat a rout of men running for their lives, pursued by Hussars and Dragoons.
The French were forced to abandon everything. The whole equipment of their army was captured, every single gun, hundreds of carriages laden with the loot of cities they had sacked, and one million pounds in their Paymasters' chests. King Joseph fled on horseback, and when he reached Pamplona had only a single gold piece in his pocket.
When the tale had been told, General Graham said to Roger, 'But now tell us of the war in the north; for you must have much later news of that theatre than we have here.'
'I've no idea, Sir, how up to date you are,' Roger replied. 'But so far neither side has reaped much advantage from this year's campaign. Following Napoleon's disaster in Russia, Prince Eugene was forced to fall back to the Elbe, but the French still had strong garrisons in all the big fortress towns of northern Germany. After the great Kutuzov died in March, General Wittgenstein was given command of the Russian army, but he was later succeeded by Barclay de Tolly—ever a cautious man—so the best advantage was not taken of the situation.